HE  CROWN  OF 


NDM  WA\    Y 


William   George  Jordan's 

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The  Crown  of 
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THE  CROWN  OF 
INDIVIDUALITY 


CHICAGO 
TORONTC 


FLEMING   H. 

REVELL 
COMPANY 

NEW   YORK 


LONDON 
BURGH 


copyright,  1909,  by 

FLEMING  H.  REVELL  COMPANY 

SECOND  EDITION 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


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CONTENTS 

/.  The  Crown  of  Individuality        .  7 

/I.  No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn     .  24 

III.  Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life        .  35 

/F.  The  Sculptured  Figures  of  Society  50 

V.  The  Hungers  of  Life  .        .        .  63 

VI.  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  .  76 

VII.  At  the  Turn  of  the  Road      .        .  89 

VIII.  Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment  .  99 

IX.  The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    .  112 

X.  Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art      .        .  122 

XI.  The  Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness  135 

XII.  The  Crimes  of  Respectability       .  149 

XIII.  Optimism  that  Really  Counts        .  162 

XIV.  Power  of  Individual  Purpose       .  175 

XV.  When  We  Forget  the  Equity         .  186 
X  VI.  Running  Away  from  Life    .        .  200 
XVII.  The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity   .  211 


The  Crown  of  Individuality 


HE  supreme  courage  of 
life  is  the  courage  of 
the  soul.  It  is  living, 
day  by  day,  sincerely, 
steadfastly,  serenely, — 
despite  all  opinions,  all  obstacles,  all 
opposition.  It  means  the  wine  of  in- 
spiration for  ourselves  and  others  that 
comes  from  the  crushed  grapes  of  our 
sorrows.  This  courage  makes  the  sim- 
plest life,  great ;  it  makes  the  greatest 
life — sublime.  It  means  the  royal  dig- 
nity of  fine  individual  living. 

Every  man  reigns  a  king  over  the 

kingdom  of — self.     He  wears  the  crown 
7 


8      The  Crown  of  Individuality 

of  individuality  that  no  hands  but  his 
own  can  ever  remove.  He  should  not 
only  reign,  but — rule.  His  individu- 
ality is  his  true  self,  his  best  self,  his 
highest  self,  his  self  victorious.  His 
thoughts,  his  words,  his  acts,  his  feel- 
ings, his  aims  and  his  powers  are  his 
— subjects.  With  gentle,  firm  strength 
he  must  command  them  or,  they  will 
finally  take  from  his  feeble  fingers  the 
reins  of  government  and  rule  in  his 
stead.  Man  must  first  be  true  to  him- 
self or  he  will  be  false  to  all  the  world. 
Man  reigns  over  this  miniature  king- 
dom of  self — alone.  He  is  as  much 
an  autocrat  as  is  God  in  ruling  the 
universe.  No  one  can  make  him  good 
or  evil  but  he,  himself.  No  one  else 
in  all  the  world  has  his  work  or  his 
influence.  Each  of  us  can  carry  a 
balm  of  joy,  and  strength,  and  light, 


The  Crown  of  Individuality      9 

and  love  to  some  hearts  that  will  re- 
spond to  no  other.  Each  can  add  the 
last  bitter  drop  in  the  cup  of  life  to 
some  one  dependent  on  us  through 
love  or  friendship.  No  other  in  all 
the  world  can  live  our  life,  loyally 
fulfill  our  duties,  or  wear  the  crown  of 
our  individuality.  It  is  a  wondrous 
joy  and  inspiration  to  us  if  we  see  this 
in  its  true  light,  for  never  again  would 
we  ask :  "  What  use  am  I  in  the 
world?" 

When  God  "  created  man  in  His  own 
image  "  His  first  gift  to  him  was — do- 
minion. The  greatest  dominion  is  over 
— self.  Our  lives  should  be  vital  to 
those  around  us.  Each  of  us  can  be 
the  sun  of  life  in  the  sky  of  some  one 
— perhaps  many.  Were  we  suddenly 
to  have  made  luminant  to  us  in  every 
vivid  detail  our  daily  influence  we 


io    The  Crown  of  Individuality 

should  stand  stunned  by  the  revela- 
tion as  was  Moses  in  reverent  expect- 
ancy before  the  burning  bush. 

The  realization  of  the  glory  of  the 
crown  of  our  individuality  would  sweep 
the  pettiness  of  selfish  living  and  the 
wonder  of  the  unanswerable  eternal 
problems  alike  into — nothingness. 

The  world  needs  more  individuality 
in  its  men  and  women.  It  needs  them 
with  the  joy  of  individual  freedom  in 
their  minds,  the  fresh  blood  of  honest 
purpose  in  their  hearts,  and  the  cour- 
age of  truth  in  their  souls.  It  needs 
more  people  daring  to  think  their  own 
highest  thoughts  and  strong  vibrant 
voices  to  speak  them,  not  human  phono- 
graphs mechanically  giving  forth  what 
some  one  else  has  talked  into  them. 
The  world  needs  men  and  women  led 
by  the  light  of  truth  alone,  and  as 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     1 1 

powerless  to  suppress  their  highest 
convictions  as  Vesuvius  to  restrain  its 
living  fire. 

They  have  the  glad  inspiring  con- 
sciousness that  they  are  not  mere  units 
on  the  census  list,  not  weak  victims  of 
their  own  impulses,  not  human  bricks 
baked  into  deadly  uniformity  by  con- 
ventionality, but  themselves — individ- 
uals. They  are  not  faint  carbon  cop- 
ies of  others  but  strong,  bold-print 
originals, — of  themselves.  They  are 
ever  lights  not  reflections,  voices  not 
echoes.  To  them  the  real  things  of 
life  are  the  only  great  ones,  the  only 
objects  worth  a  hard  struggle. 

In  our  darkest  hours  new  strength 
always  comes  to  us,  if  we  believe,  as 
the  silent  stars  shine  out  in  the  sky 
above  us — when  it  is  dark  enough. 
The  hardest  battle  for  our  highest  self 


12    The  Crown  of  Individuality 

is,  when  hungry  for  love  and  compan- 
ionship of  the  soul,  we  must  fight  on 
— alone.  If  we  have  one  or  two  dear 
loyal  ones  watching  bravely  by  our 
side,  understanding  us  with  a  look, 
heartening  us  with  a  smile  or  inspir- 
ing us  with  a  warm  hand-pressure,  we 
should  fairly  tingle  with  courage  and 
confidence. 

But  if  these  leave  us,  slip  away  un- 
der the  strain,  or  even  betray  us,  let  us 
face  alone  the  seemingly  empty  life 
that  is  left  us,  just  as  heroically  as  we 
can.  Let  us  still  stand  in  silent 
strength,  like  a  lone  sentry  keeping 
guard  over  a  sleeping  regiment,  in  the 
grim  shadows  of  night,  forgetting  for  a 
time  the  terror  of  the  solitude,  the 
darkness,  the  loneliness,  the  isolation 
and  the  phantom  invasion  of  memories 
that  will  not  stay  buried,  in  the  cour- 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     13 

age  that  comes  from  facing  an  inevita- 
ble duty  with  a  sturdy  soul.  Of  course 
it  is  not  easy  to  live  on  the  uplands  of 
life.  It  was  never  intended  to  be  easy, 
but  oh — it  is  worth  while. 

Individuality  is  the  only  real  life. 
It  is  breathing  the  ozone  of  mental, 
moral,  spiritual  freedom.  Nature 
made  the  countless  thousands  of 
flowers,  trees,  birds  and  animals  with- 
out permitting  two  to  be  precisely 
alike.  She  stamped  them  with — indi- 
viduality. She  did  it  in  a  greater 
way  for  man.  Some  people  seem  to 
spend  most  of  their  time — trying  to 
soak  off  the  stamp.  They  follow  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  crowd,  guided  by 
their  advice.  They  wear  a  uniform  of 
opinion ;  suffer  in  the  strait-jacket  of 
silly  convention,  seek  ever  to  keep 
in  step  with  the  line,  and  march  in 


14    The  Crown  of  Individuality 

solid  sameness  along  the  comfortably 
paved  road  of  other  people's  thinking, 
— not  their  own. 

Individuality  means  stimulating  all 
the  flowers  of  our  best  nature  and 
banishing  one  by  one  the  weeds  of  our 
lower  self.  It  means  kingship  over 
self  and  kinship  with  all  humanity. 
It  means  self-knowledge,  self-confi- 
dence, self-reliance,  self-poise,  self-con- 
trol, self-conquest.  It  is  the  fullest 
expression  of  our  highest  self,  as  the 
most  perfect  rose  most  truly  represents 
the  bush  from  which  it  blossoms. 

Individuality  is  the  complete  self- 
acting  union  and  unity  of  man's 
whole  mind,  nature,  heart  and  life.  It 
is  moved  ever  from  within,  not  from 
without.  The  automobile  is  a  type  of 
individuality — it  is  neither  pushed, 
pulled  nor  propelled  by  outside  forces. 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     15 

The   automobile   is  self-inspired,   self- 
directed,  self-moving. 

Eccentricity  is  not  individuality — it 
is  a  warped,  unnatural  distortion,  like 
a  reflection  from  a  concave  or  convex 
mirror.  Hypocrisy  is  not  individual- 
ity— a  mask  is  never  a  face  and  no 
matter  how  close  it  be  held  to  the  skin 
it  never  becomes  a  real  face.  Conven- 
tionality is  not  individuality — it  is  the 
molding  of  all  that  is  vital  and  original 
in  us  to  conform  to  an  average  type. 
Affectation  is  not  individuality — it  is 
only  pretentious  display  of  qualities 
one  has  not  in  stock.  Individuality 
permeates  every  thought,  word  and 
act  of  ours  as  a  half  grain  of  aniline 
will  tinge  a  hogshead  of  water  so 
that  the  microscope  will  detect  the 
colouring  matter  in  ev^ry  drop.  Indi- 
viduality crowns  every  expression  of 


1 6    The  Crown  of  Individuality 


itself,  in  every  day  of  living,  with  the 
— crown  of  its  own  kingship. 

He  who  is  swerved  from  a  course  he 
knows  is  right,  through  fear  of  ridi- 
cule, taunts,  sneers  or  sarcasm  of  those 
around  him,  is  not  a  man — self-directed 
by  right.  He  is  only  a  weak  puppet 
pulled  by  the  strings  of  manipulation 
in  the  hands  of  others.  He  is  a  figure 
in  a  moral  Punch  and  Judy  show — 
without  its  entertaining  quality. 

The  man  who  knows  he  is  doing 
wrong,  may  realize  it  coolly,  calmly, 
considerately,  and  even  confess  it  with  a 
sort  of  bravado,  while  he  is  too  cowardly 
and  selfish  to  do  the  imperative  right 
is  not — a  king  over  his  higher  self  but  a 
weak  slave  of  his  lower  self.  That  he 
knows  the  right  and  sees  it  without 
illusion  merely  emphasizes  the  depth 

^5r 

of  the  abyss  into  which  he  has  fallen. 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     17 

The  woman  who  lets  bitterness  grow 
in  her  heart  until  it  poisons  judgment, 
kills  the  love  that  was  dear  to  her, 
deadens  all  her  finer  emotions  and  lets 
petrified  prejudice  usurp  the  throne  of 
her  justice  while  she  shuts  her  ears  to 
all  pleas  for  understanding,  commits 
one  of  those  little  tragedies  in  every- 
day life  that  may  scar  for  years  the 
soul  of  the  one  so  cruelly  misjudged. 
She  may  recklessly  throw  the  golden 
crown  of  her  individuality,  with  all  its 
dear,  sweet  love  and  tenderness,  into 
the  weary  loneliness  of  the  years. 

He  who,  from  sheer  lack  of  purpose, 
drifts  through  life,  letting  the  golden 
years  of  his  highest  hopes  glide  empty 
back  into  the  perspective  of  his  past 
while  he  fills  his  ears  with  the  lorelei 
song  of  procrastination  is  working 
overtime  in  accumulating  remorse  to 


1 8    The  Crown  of  Individuality 


darken  his  future.  He  is  idly  per- 
mitting the  crown  of  his  individual- 
ity to  remain  an  irritating  symbol 
of  what  might  be  rather  than  a  joyous 
emblem  of  what  is.  This  man  is  reign- 
ing, for  reign  he  must,  but  he  is  not — 
ruling. 

Individuality  does  not  mean  merely 
being  our  self,  but  our — highest  self. 
It  never  means  living  for  self  alone. 
The  world,  in  every  phase,  must  be 
saved  by — individuals.  You  cannot 
take  humanity  in  mass  up  in  moral  ele- 
vators ;  they  must  receive  and  accept 
good  as  individuals.  The  united  work 
of  individuals  makes  up  the  action  of 
society.  It  is  easier  to  stimulate  the 
individual  to  action  than  it  is  to  gal- 
vanize society,  as  it  is  easier  to  lift  one 
stone  than  a  cathedral.  As  we  in- 
tensify true  individuality  we  at  the 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     19 

same  instant  begin  a  fine  cooperation 
with  the  best  work  of  all  humanity. 

Individuality  is  the  link ;  coopera- 
tion is  the  chain.  You  can  strengthen 
the  chain  only  as  you  strengthen  the 
link.  Christ,  the  great  individualist, 
knew  no  shadow  of  selfishness.  He 
sought  to  make  better,  stronger  links 
in  the  living  chain  of  humanity.  His 
influence  was  ever  an  inspiration.  He 
represented  perfected  individuality  and 
individual  perfection. 

Let  us  reign  a  king  over  our  indi- 
viduality by  conquering  every  element 
of  weakness  within  us  that  keeps  us 
from  our  best  and  raising  every  ele- 
ment of  strength  to  its  highest  power 
by  living  in  simple  harmony  with  our 
ideals.  We  should  begin  it  to-day. 
To-day  is  the  only  real  day  of  life  for 
us.  To-day  is  the  tomb  of  yesterday, 


2O    The  Crown  of  Individuality 

the  cradle  of  to-morrow.  All  our  past 
ends  in  to-day.  All  our  future  begins 
in  to-day. 

Let  us  seek  to  reign  nobly  on  the 
throne  of  our  highest  self  for  just  a 
single  day,  filling  every  moment  of 
every  hour  with  our  finest,  unselfish 
best.  Then  there  would  come  to  us 
such  a  vision  of  the  golden  glory  of  the 
sunlit  heights,  such  a  glad,  glowing 
tonic  of  the  higher  levels  of  life,  that 
we  could  never  dwell  again  in  the 
darkened  valley  of  ordinary  living 
without  feeling  shut  in,  stifled,  and 
hungry  for  the  freer  air  and  the 
broader  outlook. 

If  at  the  close  of  day  we  can  think 
of  even  one  human  being  whose  sky 
has  been  darkened  by  our  selfishness, 
one  whose  burden  has  been  new- 
weighted  by  our  unkindness,  one  whose 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     21 

pillow  will  be  wet  with  sobs  for  our 
injustice,  one  whose  faith  in  humanity 
has  been  weakened  at  a  crucial  mo- 
ment by  our  bitterness  or  cruelty,  let 
us  make  quick  atonement.  Let  us 
write  the  letter  our  heart  impels  us  to 
write,  while  foolish  pride  would  stay 
the  hand ;  let  us  speak  the  confession 
that  will  glorify  the  lips  we  fear  it  may 
humiliate  ;  let  us  stretch  out  the  hand 
of  love  in  the  darkness  till  it  touches 
and  inspires  the  faithful  one  that  pos- 
sibly never  caused  us  real  pain. 

Let  us  have  that  great  pride  in  our 
individuality  that  would  scorn  to  let 
petty  pique  or  vanity  keep  us  from 
doing  what  we  know  is  right.  Wear 
the  robes  of  your  royal  pride  in  such 
kingly  fashion  that  it  would  seem  no 
sacrifice  to  stoop  to  brush  off  that 
which  might  stain  them. 


22     The  Crown  of  Individuality 

Let  us  make  this  life  of  ours  a  joy 
to  ourselves  and  a  tower  of  strength  to 
others.  Then  shall  we  have  made  this 
life  a  success,  no  matter  what  its  re- 
sults. We  shall  have  made  charac- 
ter— and  character  is  real  life.  The 
truest  success  is  not  the  one  the  world 
often  holds  highest — that  which  is  rung 
up  on  a  cash-register.  The  truest  suc- 
cess is  a  strong  nature,  living  at  a  high 
but  steady  moral  pressure,  and  radia- 
ting love,  kindness,  sympathy ,  strength, 
tenderness  and  joy  to  others. 

Let  us  live  with  our  faces  turned  ever 
courageously  to  the  East  for  the  faint- 
est sunrise  of  new  inspiration.  Let  us 
realize  that  the  four  guardians  of  the 
crown  of  individuality  are  Right,  Jus- 
tice, Truth,  and  Love.  Let  us  make 
Right  our  highest  guide,  Justice  our 
finest  aim,  Truth  our  final  revelation, 


The  Crown  of  Individuality     23 

and  Love  the  constant  atmosphere  of 
our  living.  Then  truly  will  we  reign 
and — rule.  It  is  not  the  extent  of  the 
kingdom  but  the  fine  quality  of  the 
kingship  that  really  counts. 


II 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 


HE  world's  attitude  to- 
wards the  birth  of 
every  great  truth  is 
focused  in  a  single 
phrase  in  the  simple 
story  of  the  first  Christmas,  the  great- 
est birthday  since  Time  began.  Mary 
laid  the  infant  Christ  in  a  manger — 
"  because  there  was  no  room  for  them 
in  the  inn." 

For  worldly  success,  fame,  social 
prestige,  laurel-crowned  triumph,  the 
inn  is  illuminated ;  welcoming  music 
fills  the  air;  and  the  inn  doors  are 
thrown  wide  open.  But  struggle  to- 
wards sublime  attainment,  heroic  ef- 
24 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn    25 

fort  to  better  the  world,  simple  conse- 
cration of  soul  to  a  noble  ideal  means 
— the  manger  and  a  lonely  pathway  lit 
only  by  the  torch  of  truth  held  high 
in  the  hand  of  purpose. 

Right  must  ever  fight  its  way 
against  the  world.  Truth  must  ever 
walk  alone  in  its  Gethsemane.  Justice 
must  bravely  face  its  Calvary  if  it 
would  still  live  in  triumph  after  all 
efforts  to  slay  it.  Love  must  ever,  in 
the  end,  burst  forth  in  its  splendour 
from  the  dark  clouds  of  hate  and  dis- 
cord that  seek  to  obscure  it.  These 
great  truths  must  be  born  in  the 
manger  of  poverty,  or  pain,  or  trial,  or 
suffering,  finding  no  room  at  the  inn 
until  at  last  by  entering  it  in  triumph 
they  honour  the  inn  that  never 
honoured  them  in  their  hours  of  need, 
of  struggle  or  of  darkness. 


26    No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 


It  is  so  written  in  the  story  of  the 
world's  leaders,  it  is  the  chorus  of  the 
song  of  every  great  human  effort,  it  is 
the  secret  of  the  loneliest  hours  of 
supreme  aspiration,  it  epitomizes  the 
whole  life  of  Christ.  As  a  babe — 
there  was  no  room  for  Him  in  the 
inn  ;  as  a  boy — there  was  no  room  for 
Him  in  Israel ;  as  a  man,  condemned 
by  Pilate — there  was  no  room  for  Him 
in  all  the  world.  His  life  seemed  a 
failure,  the  results  poor  and  barren, 
yet  to-day  the  world  has  thousands  of 
churches,  spiritual  inns,  built  in  His 
memory.  The  glory  of  the  end  makes 
trials  along  the  way  seem — nothing. 

It  requires  sterling  courage  to  live 
on  the  uplands  of  truth,  battling 
bravely  for  the  right,  undismayed  by 
coldness,  undaunted  by  contempt,  un- 
moved by  criticism,  serenely  confident, 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn    27 

even  in  the  darkest  hours,  that  right, 
justice  and  truth  must  win  in  the  end. 

We  may  see  the  inn  welcome  the 
successful  without  auditing  the  ac- 
counts of  ways  and  means  by  which 
that  success  was  won ;  pass  in  the 
hypocrite  without  realizing  that  his 
passport  is  forged,  accept  the  swagger- 
ing and  assertive  at  their  own  estimate, 
near-sightedly  mistake  the  brass  of 
pretense  for  the  gold  of  true  worth, 
give  a  fine  suite  of  corner  rooms  to  a 
fad  and  have  no  room  at  all  for  a 
philosophy.  The  world  makes  many 
mistakes.  Time  corrects  many  mis- 
takes. Time  is  always  on  the  side  of 
right  and  truth.  It  is  the  silent  ally 
of  all  great  work. 

There  comes  a  time  in  every  indi- 
vidual life  when  earnest,  honest  effort, 
disheartened,  dismayed,  distressed, 


28    No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 

says:  "What  is  the  use  of  it  all? 
Why  should  I  suffer  poverty,  sorrow, 
loneliness  and  failure  while  I  am  try- 
ing so  hard  to  be  good,  kind,  sympa- 
thetic, helpful,  and  just  ?  Why  should 
I  not  have  some  of  the  good  things  I 
long  for?  Is  the  struggle  for  moral 
things  really  worth  while  after  all  ?  " 

These  are  big  questions ;  they  are 
the  very  sobs  of  the  soul.  They  are 
hard  indeed  to  answer,  but  something 
within  us,  deeper  than  reason,  tells  us 
that  it  is  worth  while,  that  it  must  be 
and  that  we  must  set  our  feet  bravely 
towards  the  future  and  do  our  best  even 
when  the  clouds  hang  lowest.  The 
seeming  ease  and  prosperity  of  those 
leading  idle,  selfish  lives  should  never 
divert  us  from  the  path  of  truth. 

If  we  know  we  are  right  we  should 
care  naught  for  the  crowd  at  the  inn. 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn    29 

It  must  be  that  there  is  something 
higher  in  life  than  the  welcome  at  the 
inn,  the  approval  of  the  world,  or 
any  accumulation  of  purely  material 
things.  There  is  the  consciousness  of 
work  well  done,  of  steadfast  loyalty  to 
an  ideal,  of  faithfulness  in  little  things, 
of  lives  made  sweeter,  truer,  better  by 
our  living,  of  a  lovelight  in  eyes  look- 
ing into  ours — these  may  be  part  of  the 
glorious  flowering  of  our  days  greater 
far  to  our  highest  self  than  any  mere 
welcome  at  the  inn. 

Moral  goodness  or  spiritual  glow  does 
not  bring — worldly  success.  That  it 
does  is  a  delusive  yet  popular  system  of 
ethics.  Daily  exercise  of  all  the  higher 
virtues  and  keeping  one's  moral  muscles 
in  prime  condition  does  not  necessarily 
bring — wealth  and  prosperity.  If  it 
were  true  the  saints  of  the  world  would 


30   No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 


be  the  millionaires.  Careful  study  of 
our  richest  class  does  not  show  they  are 
conspicuous  wearers  of  halos.  If  it 
were  true,  it  would  be  placing  the  ma- 
terial side  of  life  as  the  ideal,  the  goal, 
the  aim,  and  end  of  living.  High 
moral  or  spiritual  life  would  be  but  a 
means,  morality  would  be  but  a  shrewd 
investment,  prosperity  a  dividend. 

He  who  speculates  in  morals  for  the 
coupons  and  trading  stamps  of  success 
is  not  really  moral,  he  is  merely — 
hypocritic.  Business  success  is  the  re- 
sult of  obeying,  in  some  form,  specific 
laws  that  make  that  success.  Some  of 
these  laws  are  based  on  those  of  morals, 
some  run  parallel,  some  cut  across 
morals  on  the  bias,  but  they  are  not — 
identical.  The  angel  Gabriel  would 
probably  not  be  able  to  make  day's 
wages  in  Wall  Street.  Christ  had  not 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn   3 1 

"  where  to  lay  His  head."  The  only 
reason  for  being  right,  doing  right,  and 
living  right  is — because  it  is  right. 

True  living  brings  peace  to  the  soul, 
fibre  to  character,  kingship  over  self,  in- 
spiration to  others,  but  not  necessarily — 
money  and  material  prosperity.  These 
are  surely  pleasing  to  possess ;  few 
people  are  trying  very  energetically  to 
dodge  them.  They  have  their  proper 
place  in  the  scheme  of  life  but  they  are 
not — supreme.  If  they  were  highest, 
candidates  for  the  choicest  seats  in 
heaven  could  be  selected  purely  by 
double  "  A  "  Bradstreet  ratings ;  they 
would  be  taken  ever  from  the  crowded 
inn — not  the  lonely  manger.  At  the 
inn  they  inquire  :  "  Will  it  pay?  Is  it 
popular?  Is  it  successful?"  At  the 
manger  they  ask  :  "  Is  it  right?  Is  it 
true?  Is  it  helpful?" 


32   No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 

True  living  consists  of  living  at  our 
best  without  thought  of  reward — doing 
the  highest  right,  as  we  see  it,  and 
facing  results,  calmly,  courageously 
and  unquestioning.  It  means  living 
to  give  not  to  get,  thinking  more  of 
what  we  can  radiate  than  what  we  can 
absorb,  more  of  what  we  are  than  of 
what  we  have. 

Humanity  dreams  golden  dreams  of 
the  wondrous  things  it  would  do  if  it 
only  had  money — the  happiness,  cheer, 
comfort,  joy  and  peace  it  could  bring 
to  thousands.  But  wealth  could  not 
buy  the  very  things  the  world  hungers 
for  most — love,  kindness,  calmness,  in- 
spiration, peace,  trust,  truth  and  justice. 
The  greatest  gift  the  individual  can 
give  the  world  is — personal  service. 
The  manger  typified  personal  service, 
consecrated  freely  to  humanity. 


No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn    33 

Every  great  truth  in  all  the  ages 
has  had  to  battle  for  recognition.  If 
it  be  real  it  is  worth  the  struggle. 
Out  of  the  struggle  comes  new  strength 
for  the  victor.  Trampled  grass  grows 
the  greenest.  Hardship  and  trial  and 
restriction  and  opposition  mean  new 
vitality  to  character.  In  potting  plants 
it  is  well  not  to  have  the  pot  too  large, 
for  the  more  crowded  the  roots  the 
more  the  plant  will  bloom.  It  is  true, 
in  a  larger  sense,  of  life.  The  world 
has  ever  misunderstood  and  battled 
against  its  thinkers,  its  leaders,  its 
reformers,  its  heroes. 

We  must  all  fight  for  our  ideals,  foi 
truth,  for  individuality,  never  counting 
the  cost,  never  keeping  our  ears  close  to 
the  ground  to  hear  the  faint  murmurs 
of  approval  or  condemnation  from  the 
self-absorbed  crowd  at  the  inn. 


34    No  Room  for  Them  in  the  Inn 

If  confident  that  we  are  right,  ac- 
cording to  our  highest  light,  if  we  are 
sailing  by  our  chart,  guided  by  our 
compass,  freighted  with  a  true  cargo 
and  headed  for  our  harbour  let  us  care 
naught  for  what  the  world  says.  What 
matters  it  if  the  world  thinks  our  econ- 
omy for  some  unselfish  purpose  known 
to  us  alone  is  meanness,  our  loyalty 
to  an  ideal  is  folly,  our  decision  of  a 
right  is  the  climax  of  error  and  the  joy 
that  is  nearest  and  dearest  but  an 
empty  dream  ? 

The  world  ever  comes  round  at  last 
to  the  point  of  view  of  the  man  who  is 
right.  The  inn  finally  finds  room  for 
truth  and  right — when  they  have 
proved  themselves.  The  manger  and 
the  lonely  path  are  ever — finally 
vindicated.  It  is  the  final  surrender 
to — the  crown  of  individuality. 


Ill 

Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

HERE  are  only  two 
classes  of  people  who 
never  make  mistakes, 
— they  are  the  dead  and 
the  unborn.  Mistakes 
are  the  inevitable  accompaniment  of 
the  greatest  gift  given  to  man, — indi- 
vidual freedom  of  action.  If  he  were 
only  a  pawn  in  the  fingers  of  Omnip- 
otence, with  no  self-moving  power,  man 
would  never  make  a  mistake,  but  his 
very  immunity  would  degrade  him  to 
the  ranks  of  the  lower  animals  and 
the  plants.  An  oyster  never  makes  a 
mistake, — it  has  not  the  mind  that 

would  permit  it  to  forsake  an  instinct. 
35 


36     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

Let  us  be  glad  of  the  dignity  of  our 
privilege  to  make  mistakes,  glad  of  the 
wisdom  that  enables  us  to  recognize 
them,  glad  of  the  power  that  permits 
us  to  turn  their  light  as  a  glowing 
illumination  along  the  pathway  of  our 
future. 

Mistakes  are  the  growing  pains  of 
wisdom,  the  assessments  we  pay  on  our 
stock  of  experience,  the  raw  material 
of  error  to  be  transformed  into  higher 
living.  Without  them  there  would  be 
no  individual  growth,  no  progress,  no 
conquest.  Mistakes  are  the  knots,  the 
tangles,  the  broken  threads,  the 
dropped  stitches  in  the  web  of  our  liv- 
ing. They  are  the  misdeals  in  judg- 
ment, our  unwise  investments  in 
morals,  the  profit  and  loss  account  of 
wisdom.  They  are  the  misleading  by- 
paths from  the  straight  road  of  truth — 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life    37 

and  truth  in  our  highest  living  is  but 
the  accuracy  of  the  soul. 

Human  fallibility,  weakness,  petti- 
ness, folly  and  sin  are  all — mistakes. 
They  are  to  be  accepted  as  mortgages  of 
error,  to  be  redeemed  by  wiser  living. 
They  should  never  weakly  be  taken  as 
justifying  bankruptcy  of  effort.  Even 
a  great  mistake  is  only  an  episode 
— never  a  whole  life. 

Life  is  simply  time  given  to  man  to 
learn  how  to  live.  Mistakes  are  always 
part  of  learning.  The  real  dignity  of 
life  consists  in  cultivating  a  fine  atti- 
tude towards  our  own  mistakes  and 
those  of  others.  It  is  the  fine  toler- 
ance of  a  fine  soul.  Man  becomes 
great,  not  through  never  making  mis- 
takes, but  by  profiting  by  those  he 
does  make ;  by  being  satisfied  with  a 
single  rendition  of  a  mistake,  not  en- 


MMtfOTB 


38     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

coring  it  into  a  continuous  perform- 
ance ;  by  getting  from  it  the  honey  of 
new,  regenerating  inspiration  with  no 
irritating  sting  of  morbid  regret ;  by 
building  better  to-day  because  of  his 
poor  yesterday ;  and  by  rising  with  re- 
newed strength,  finer  purpose  and 
freshened  courage  every  time  he  falls. 

In  great  chain  factories,  power  ma- 
chines are  specially  built  to  test  chains 
— to  make  them  fail,  to  show  their 
weakness,  to  reveal  the  mistakes  of 
workmanship.  Let  us  thank  God 
when  a  mistake  shows  us  the  weak 
link  in  the  chain  of  our  living.  It  is 
a  new  revelation  of  how  to  live.  It 
means  the  rich  red  blood  of  a  new  in- 
spiration. 

If  we  have  made  an  error,  done  a 
wrong,  been  unjust  to  another  or  to 
ourselves,  or,  like  the  Pharisee,  passed 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life     39 

by  some  opportunity  for  good,  we 
should  have  the  courage  to  face  our 
mistake  squarely,  to  call  it  boldly  by 
its  right  name,  to  acknowledge  it 
frankly  and  to  put  in  no  flimsy  alibis 
of  excuse  to"  protect  an  anemic  self- 
esteem. 

If  we  have  been  selfish,  unselfishness 
should  atone  ;  if  we  have  wronged,  we 
should  right ;  if  we  have  hurt,  we  should 
heal ;  if  we  have  taken  unjustly,  we 
should  restore  ;  if  we  have  been  unfair, 
we  should  become  just.  Regret  with- 
out regeneration  is — an  emotional 
gold- brick.  Every  possible  reparation 
should  be  made.  If  confession  of  re- 
gret for  the  wrong  and  for  our  inability 
to  set  it  right  be  the  maximum  of  our 
power  let  us  at  least  do  that.  A  quick 
atonement  sometimes  almost  effaces  the 
memory.  If  foolish  pride  stands  in 


40     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

our  way  we  are  aggravating  the  first 
mistake  by  a  new  one.  Some  people's 
mistakes  are  never  born  singly — they 
come  in  litters. 

Those  who  waken  to  the  realization 
of  their  wrong  act,  weeks,  months  or 
years  later,  sometimes  feel  it  is  better  to 
let  confession  or  reparation  lapse,  that 
it  is  too  late  to  reopen  a  closed  account ; 
but  men  rarely  feel  deeply  wounded  if 
asked  to  accept  payment  on  an  old 
promissory  note — outlawed  for  years. 

Some  people  like  to  wander  in  the 
cemetery  of  their  past  errors,  to  reread 
the  old  epitaphs  and  to  spend  hours  in 
mourning  over  the  grave  of  a  wrong. 
This  new  mistake  does  not  antidote 
the  old  one.  The  remorse  that  para- 
lyzes hope,  corrodes  purpose,  and  dead- 
ens energy  is  not  moral  health,  it  is — 
an  indigestion  of  the  soul  that  cannot 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life    41 

assimilate  an  act.  It  is  selfish,  cow- 
ardly surrender  to  the  dominance  of 
the  past.  It  is  lost  motion  in  morals  ; 
it  does  no  good  to  the  individual,  to 
the  injured,  to  others,  or  to  the  world. 
If  the  past  be  unworthy  live  it  down  ; 
if  it  be  worthy  live  up  to  it  and — 
surpass  it. 

Omnipotence  cannot  change  the  past, 
so  why  should  we  try  ?  Our  duty  is  to 
compel  that  past  to  vitalize  our  future 
with  new  courage  and  purpose,  making 
it  a  larger,  greater  future  than  would 
have  been  possible  without  the  past 
that  has  so  grieved  us.  If  we  can  get 
real,  fine,  appetizing  dividends  from 
our  mistakes  they  prove  themselves  not 
losses  but — wise  investments.  They 
seem  like  old  mining  shares,  laid  aside 
in  the  lavender  of  memory  of  our 
optimism  and  now,  by  some  sudden 


42     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

change  in  the  market  of  speculation, 
proved  to  be  of  real  value. 

Realizing  mistakes  is  good ;  realiz- 
ing on  them  is  better.  When  a  cap- 
tain finds  his  vessel  is  out  of  the  right 
channel,  carried,  by  negligence,  by  ad- 
verse winds  or  by  blundering  through 
a  fog,  from  the  true  course,  he  wastes 
no  time  in  bemoaning  his  mistake  but 
at  the  first  sunburst  takes  new  bear- 
ings, changes  his  course,  steers  bravely 
towards  his  harbour  with  renewed  cour- 
age to  make  up  the  time  he  has  lost. 
The  mistake  means — increased  care  and 
greater  speed. 

Musing  over  the  dreams  of  youth, 
the  golden  hopes  that  have  not  blos- 
somed into  deeds,  is  a  dangerous  men- 
tal dissipation.  In  very  small  doses  it 
may  stimulate ;  in  large  ones  it  weak- 
ens effort.  It  over-emphasizes  the  past 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life     43 

at  the  expense  of  the  present ;  it  adds 
weights,  not  wings,  to  purpose.  "  It 
might  have  been "  is  the  lullaby  of 
regret  with  which  man  often  puts  to 
sleep  the  mighty  courage  and  confi- 
dence that  should  inspire  him.  We 
do  not  need  narcotics  in  life  so  much 
as  we  need  tonics.  We  may  try  some- 
times, sadly  and  speculatively,  to  re- 
construct our  life  from  some  date  in 
the  past  when  we  might  have  taken  a 
different  course.  We  build  on  a  dead 
"  if."  This  is  the  most  unwise  brand 
of  air-castle. 

We  go  back  in  memory  to  some  fork 
of  the  road  in  life  and  think  what 
would  have  happened  and  how  won- 
drously  better  it  would  have  been  had 
we  taken  the  other  turning  of  the 
road.  "  If  we  had  learned  some  other 
business ; "  "  If  we  had  gone  West  in 


44     Facing  tJie  Mistakes  of  Life 

1884  ;  "  "  If  we  had  married  the  other 
one  ;  "  "  If  we  had  bought  telephone 
stock  when  it  was  at  35  ;  "  "  If  we  had 
taken  a  different  course  in  education  ;  " 
"  If  we  had  only  spent  certain  money  in 
some  other  way," — and  so  we  run  use- 
lessly our  empty  train  of  thought  over 
these  slippery  "  ifs." 

Even  if  these  courses  might  have 
been  wiser,  and  we  do  not  really  know, 
it  is  now  as  impossible  to  change  back 
to  them  as  for  the  human  race  to  go 
back  to  the  original  bit  of  protoplasm 
from  which  science  declares  we  are 
evolved.  The  past  does  not  belong  to 
us  to  change  or  to  modify ;  it  is  only 
the  golden  present  that  is  ours  to  make 
as  we  would  wish.  The  present  is  raw 
material ;  the  past  is  finished  product, 
— finished  forever  for  good  or  ill.  No 
regret  will  ever  enable  us  to  relive  it. 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life     45 

The  other  road  always  looks  attract- 
ive. Distant  sails  are  always  white ; 
far-off  hills  always  green.  It  may  per- 
haps have  been  the  poorer  road  after 
all,  could  our  imagination,  through 
some  magic,  see  with  perfect  vision  the 
finality  of  its  possibility.  The  other 
road  might  have  meant  wealth  but  less 
happiness ;  fame  might  have  charmed 
our  ears  with  the  sweet  music  of  praise, 
but  the  little  hand  of  love  that  rests  so 
trustingly  in  ours  might  have  been 
denied  us.  Death  itself  might  have 
come  earlier  to  us  or  his  touch  stilled 
the  beatings  of  a  heart  we  hold  dearer 
than  our  own.  What  the  other  road 
might  have  meant  no  eternity  of  con- 
jecture could  ever  reveal ;  no  omnipo- 
tence could  enable  us  now  to  walk 
therein  even  if  we  wished. 

We  cannot  relive  our  old  mistakes, 


46     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

but  we  can  make  them  the  means  of 
future  immunity  from  the  folly  that 
caused  them.  If  we  were  impatient 
yesterday,  it  should  inspire  us  to  be 
patient  to-day.  Yesterday's  anger  may 
be  the  seed  of  to-day's  sweetness.  To- 
day's kindness  should  be  the  form  as- 
sumed by  our  regret  at  yesterday's 
cruelty.  Our  unfairness  to  one  may 
open  our  eyes  to  the  possibility  of 
greater  fairness  to  hundreds.  Injustice 
to  one  that  may  seem  to  have  cost  us 
much  may  really  have  cost  us  little  if 
it  make  us  more  kind,  tender  and 
thoughtful  for  long  years. 

It  is  a  greater  mistake  to  err  in  pur- 
pose, in  aim,  in  principle,  than  in  our 
method  of  attaining  them.  The  method 
may  readily  be  modified ;  to  change 
the  purpose  may  upset  the  whole  plan 
of  our  life.  It  is  easier  in  mid-ocean  to 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life    47 

vary  the  course  of  the  ship  than  to 
change  the  cargo. 

Right  principles  are  vital  and  pri- 
mary. They  bring  the  maximum  of 
profit  from  mistakes,  reduce  the  loss  to 
a  minimum.  False  pride  perpetuates 
our  mistakes,  deters  us  from  confessing 
them,  debars  us  from  repairing  them 
and  ceasing  them. 

Man's  attitude  towards  his  mistakes  is 
various  and  peculiar ;  some  do  not  see 
them  ;  some  will  not  see  them ;  some 
see  without  changing ;  some  see  and 
deplore,  but  keep  on  ;  some  make  the 
same  mistakes  over  and  over  again,  in 
principle  not  in  form ;  some  blame 
others  for  their  own  mistakes ;  some 
condemn  others  for  mistakes  seemingly 
unconscious  that  they  themselves  are 
committing  similar  ones  ;  some  excuse 
their  mistakes  by  saying  that  others  do 


48     Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life 

the  same  things,  as  though  a  disease 
were  less  dangerous  when  it  becomes 
— epidemic  in  a  community. 

Failure  does  not  necessarily  imply  a 
mistake.  If  we  have  held  our  standard 
high,  bravely  fought  a  good  fight  for  the 
right,  held  our  part  courageously  against 
heavy  opposition  and  have  finally  seen 
the  citadel  of  our  great  hope  taken  by 
superior  force,  by  overwhelming  condi- 
tions, or  sapped  and  undermined  by 
jealousy,  envy  or  treachery  we  have 
met  with  failure,  it  is  true,  but — we 
have  not  made  a  mistake. 

The  world  may  condemn  us  for  this 
non-success.  What  does  the  silly,  bab- 
bling, unthinking  world,  that  has  not 
seen  our  heroic  efforts,  know  about  it? 
What  does  it  matter  what  the  world 
thinks,  or  says,  if  we  know  we  have 
done  our  best?  Sometimes  men  fail 


Facing  the  Mistakes  of  Life    49 

nobly  because  they  have  the  courage  to 
forego  triumph  at  the  cost  of  character, 
honour,  truth  and  justice. 

Let  us  never  accept  mistakes  as  final ; 
let  us  organize  victory  out  of  the 
broken  ranks  of  failure  and,  despite  all 
odds,  fight  on  calmly,  courageously, 
unflinchingly,  serenely  confident  that, 
in  the  end,  right  living  and  right  doing 
-  -must  triumph. 


IV 


The  Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 


VER  the  great  doorway  of 
one  of  New  York's  sky- 
scraping  office  buildings 
three  colossal  sculptured 
figures  are  posed  in 
crouching  attitudes.  With  their  great 
bowed  heads,  grimly  tense  features,  and 
muscles  strained  like  whip-cords  they 
seem  to  hold  on  their  broad  shoulders 
the  terrific  weight  of  twenty  or  more 
stories  of  solid  masonry.  They  are 
really  only — pompous  shams.  Theirs 
is  only  a  Herculean  pose.  Theirs  is 
only  the  pretense  of  the  strenuous — not 
its  reality.  They  were  put  in  after  the 
building  was  completed  ;  they  could  be 

removed  without  endangering  the  safety 
50 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society     51 

of  the  edifice  in  the  slightest.  They 
have  no  more  real  responsibility  than  a 
wandering  fly,  tarrying  for  a  moment 
on  the  flag-pole  on  the  roof. 

There  are  thousands  of  such  sculp- 
tured figures  in  the  world  of  society  to- 
day. They  are  men  whose  powers  are 
evidenced  in  ounces,  whose  pretense  is 
proclaimed  in  tons.  They  are  those 
whose  promises  out-soar  the  eagles, 
whose  performance  is  lower  than  the 
flight  of  the  mud-lark.  They  are  con- 
stantly posing  physically,  mentally, 
morally,  socially,  or  spiritually.  By 
juggling  with  excuses  of  their  vanity 
and  selfishness  they  may  mislead  them- 
selves and  others  for  a  time  but  usually 
— they  deceive  only  themselves.  They 
are  most  often  like  the  village  fool  who 
thought  he  played  the  organ  when  he 
only — pumped  the  bellows. 


52     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

Certain  fairly  harmless  sculptured 
figures  have  the  pose  of  being  "  ex- 
tremely busy."  They  constantly  seek 
to  raise  themselves  to  a  conspicuous 
ledge  by  the  derrick  of  their  own  con- 
ceit. They  seem  to  have  so  much  to  ac- 
complish that  you  might  infer  that  were 
each  day  two  weeks  long  and  three 
weeks  wide,  it  would  be  absurdly  in- 
adequate for  their  diurnal  duties. 
Their  tasks  are  so  "  terrifically  many  " 
that,  if  you  were  optimistic  enough  to 
accept  their  statements  as  net,  without 
asking  for  discount,  you  would  realize 
that  these  tasks  could  never  be  accom- 
plished by  any  individual — it  would 
surely  require  a  syndicate. 

They  belong  to  a  class  who,  if  they 
receive  three  letters  in  a  day,  tell  you 
that  they  are  "just  deluged  with  corre- 
spondence." Their  social  engagements 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society     53 

are  "  positively  tiresome "  and  as  you 
listen  to  the  list  of  their  society  friends 
your  commercial  instinct  makes  you 
picture  what  a  splendid  elite  directory  it 
would  be  were  it  only  put  into  print. 
Their  troubles  with  their  servants  seem 
so  great  that  you  wonder  why  they  do 
not  discharge  nine  or  so  of  them  and 
worry  along  with  the  remainder.  They 
use  a  seventy  horse-power  vocabulary 
for  a  bicycle  set  of  thoughts.  They  go 
round  polishing  their  own  halos. 

Another  of  these  sculptured  figures 
poses  as  an  intellectual  Atlas  holding 
up  the  whole  firmament  of  thought — 
merely  one  world  is  too  easy.  His 
ignorance  and  his  impudence  ever  col- 
laborate with  his  iconoclasm.  He 
demolishes  literary  reputation  with  the 
ease  of  a  sharp-shooter  hitting  glass 
balls.  He  confides  to  you  that  Shake- 


54     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

speare  is  greatly  overrated,  Thackeray 
was  only  a  cynic,  Scott  a  garrulous  old 
novelist,  George  Eliot  a  sawdust  doll, 
Dickens  a  tedious  reporter.  All  the 
world's  greatest  dramatists,  novelists, 
poets,  philosophers  and  thinkers,  are, 
one  by  one,  inevitably  bowled  into 
— nothingness. 

There  is  a  sculptured  figure  who 
speaks  as  though  pronouncing  the  last 
word  of  finality  on  science  and  higher 
thought.  The  problems  that  have  baf- 
fled the  sages  for  ages  seem  to  him  as 
luminant  as  an  electric  sign  on  a  dark 
street.  Though  he  has  read,  perhaps, 
partially  through  one  volume  of  Spen- 
cer, Tyndall,  Huxley,  or  Darwin,  he 
erupts,  like  a  pretensive  Vesuvius  of 
knowledge  on — evolution.  There  are 
thick  clouds  of  the  smoke  of  mere 
words,  and  sputterings  of  confused 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society     55 

light.  Every  weak  spot  in  theology 
is  known  to  him  and  where  he  cannot 
find  a  puncture  he  makes  one.  He 
seems  to  believe  he  could  handle  all 
cannon-ball  problems  as  lightly  as 
though  they  were  rubber  balls.  Igno- 
rance of  many  of  these  great  questions 
is  justifiable  and  natural  to  us  who  are 
not  omniscient.  It  needs  no  apology, 
because  one  may  be  thinking  honestly 
on  other  subjects  nearer  and  dearer  to 
one's  life.  The  wrong  and  folly  lie 
only  in — the  pose  and  the  pretense. 

There  are  other  sculptured  figures 
more  sad  to  think  of,  more  serious  to 
contemplate,  more  blighting  on  the 
lives  of  others.  They  are  those  who 
peril  the  crown  of  their  individuality 
by  a  moral  or  a  religious  pose — a  com- 
bination of  pharisaism,  pride,  policy 
and  pretense.  They  may  occupy  high 


56     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

places  but,  like  statues  in  cathedrals, 
despite  the  religious  atmosphere  and 
the  environment  in  which  they  exist, 
they  remain — only  stone. 

Religion  to  be  worth  aught  must 
transform  and  sweeten  and  better  lives 
or — it  is  only  a  self-deceiving  formula. 
It  must  be  a  living  impetus  making 
them  bear  bravely  their  own  burdens ; 
it  must  broaden  their  shoulders  to 
stand  the  strain  of  others'  needs ;  it 
must  make  them  active,  virile,  aggres- 
sive, inspiring  powers  in  the  world. 
Religion,  to  be  really  worth  while, 
should,  by  their  living,  fill  men's  hearts 
with  love,  truth,  right,  justice,  sweet- 
ness, honesty,  faith,  charity,  trust  and 
peace.  These  virtues  can  no  more  be 
kept  hid  from  the  world  around  them 
than  can  the  blazing  sun,  riding  royally 
in  the  zenith  at  noonday. 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society     57 

There  are  religious  sculptured  figures 
from  sheer  hypocrisy,  consciously  trad- 
ing on  their  church  rating — these  may 
deceive  the  world  without  blindfolding 
their  own  eyes  for  a  moment.  There  is 
a  more  subtle  form  where  the  individual 
himself  does  not  realize  that  he  is  only 
an  eye-servant  or  an  ear-servant,  that 
his  is  lip  service  only.  He  has  no 
realization  that  he  is  not  transforming 
what  he  believes  is  true  into  a  dynamic 
moral  force  affecting  his  own  life  and 
the  lives  of  others. 

There  are  sculptured  figures  of  friend- 
ship that  may  deceive  us  for  a  time. 
Discovery  may  take  from  us,  for  a  long 
period,  all  that  is  best  in  us,  shrivel 
our  faith  in  humanity,  and  leave  us 
lonely — until  we  bury  the  dead  body 
of  the  friendship  and  learn  to  forget. 

There  are  friendships  upon  the  cer- 


58     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

tainty  of  which  we  have  staked  our 
life.  We  have  felt  that  though  the 
winds  of  adversity  might  blow  bleakly 
about  us ;  the  ships  of  our  highest 
hopes  wreck  at  the  moment  we  believed 
they  were  almost  in  their  haven  of 
return ;  the  night  of  our  great  mis- 
fortune settle  down  on  us,  without  a 
star ;  the  cup  of  sorrow,  shame  and 
suffering  be  close-pressed  to  our  lips,  yet 
despite  all  that  might  possibly  come 
to  us,  there  would  ever  be — this  true 
friend  by  our  side. 

We  may  have  shared  his  crust  of 
trial  and  disappointment,  heart-glad- 
dened, in  a  way,  that  we  were  privi- 
leged thus  to  be  of  service  to  him.  We 
may  have  listened  untiringly  to  his 
endless  repetition  of  the  litany  of  some 
sorrow  of  his — soothing  him,  sweetly 
consoling,  silently  and  sympathetically 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

comforting — with  no  thought  of  self. 
We  may  have  secretly  left  the  death- 
bed of  some  great  hope  of  our  own, 
stifled  our  sobs  bravely  that  he  might 
not  know,  and  sat  down  with  serene 
patience  to  watch  and  nurse  with  him 
at  the  sick-bed  of  some  grief  of  his  or 
to  help  him  towards  the  resurrection 
of  some  hope  of  his  from  the  grave  of 
his  sorrow  or  his  failure. 

All  that  was  ours,  all  the  resources 
of  our  whole  life  were  more  truly  his 
than  ours  because  his  need  would  stim- 
ulate us  to  higher  effort  in  his  behalf 
than  we  would  make  in  our  own.  He 
may  have  protested  undying  gratitude, 
told  us  freely,  over  and  over  again, 
that  no  demand  or  need  of  ours  would 
seem  even  a  drop  to  the  ever-flowing 
spring  of  his  gratitude. 

Then  when  the  finger  of  time  had 


60     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

moved  from  days  to  weeks,  and  to 
months,  the  angel  of  a  great  grief  may 
have  knocked  at  the  door  of  our  heart, 
and  perforce  we  have  to  open  and  let 
the  angel  of  sorrow  come  in.  In  the  aw- 
ful desolation  arid  loneliness  that  numb 
our  very  soul  we  may  turn  round  con- 
fident of  meeting  responsive  eyes  look- 
ing inspiration  into  ours  ;  we  involun- 
tarily bend  the  ear  to  hear  words  of 
courage  from  the  lips  of  the  only  one 
in  all  the  world  that  could  comfort  or 
console.  We  reach  out,  by  some  subtle 
instinct,  the  hand  of  our  pain,  expect- 
ing it  to  be  warmly  covered  but  instead, 
we  touch  only — the  cold,  hard,  chis- 
elled outlines  of  a  sculptured  figure. 

Then  we  realize  the  fullness  of  one  of 
the  most  pathetic-  cries  in  all  the 
world's  history,  when  Christ  in  the 
garden  of  Gethsemane,  in  sublime 


Sculptured  Figures  of  Society     6 1 

hunger  of  heart,  in  divine  protest  of 
soul,  broke  in  on  the  slumber  of  Peter, 
with  the  words  :  "  Could  ye  not  watch 
with  Me  one  hour  ?  "  We  have  faced 
a  new  tragedy  of  the  soul — alone.  The 
sculptured  figure  may  never  realize 
what  he  has  done. 

Real,  honest  effort,  no  matter  how 
slight  seem  results,  no  matter  how 
weak  seem  the  progress,  has  no  time 
for  mere  parade.  Their  high  motives 
that  inspire  are  :  love,  honour,  truth, 
justice  or  those  others  that  lead  the 
ranks  of  their  high  purpose.  The 
glowing  realization  that  their  work 
is  serious  inspires  them.  Their  conse- 
crated effort  to  rise  to  the  heights  of 
their  highest  nature — gives  a  royal 
importance  that  banishes  trivialities. 

True  importance  is  always  simple. 
The  large  duties,  cares,  and  responsi- 


62     Sculptured  Figures  of  Society 

bilities  of  those  seeking  to  do  great 
things  give  them  natural  dignity  and 
ease.  They  have  the  simple  grace  of 
the  burden-bearers  of  India,  who  carry 
heavy  loads  on  their  heads  and,  in  the 
carrying  learn  how  to  carry  them,  erect 
— with  fearless  step.  There  is  in  them 
no  trace  of  the — pose  of  the  strenuous. 
Men  of  serious  effort  think  too  much 
of  their  work  to  think  much  of  them- 
selves. Their  great  interest,  enthusi- 
asm, and  absorption  in  their  world  of 
fine  accomplishment  eclipse  all  little- 
ness. They  are  living  their  life, — not 
playing  a  part.  They  are  burning  in- 
cense at  the  shrine  of  a  great  purpose, 
— not  to  their  own  vanity.  They  ever 
have  poise, — not  pose. 


The  Hungers  of  Life 

UNGER  is  the  voice  of  a 
void.  It  is  Nature  de- 
manding her  rights.  It 
is  the  restless  insistent 
cry  of  an  instinct,  clam- 
ouring to  be  satisfied.  There  are  four 
great  hungers  of  life, — body-hunger, 
mind-hunger,  heart-hunger  and  soul- 
hunger.  They  are  all  real  ;  all  need 
recognition  ;  all  need  feeding. 

The  claim  of  a  hungry  body  has 
right  of  way  over  all  other  needs.  It 
requires  no  credentials,  no  argument, 
no  advocate.  It  holds  a  first  mortgage 
on  the  sympathy  and  aid  of  humanity. 

But  the  hunger  for  food  while  being 
63 


64          The  Hungers  of  Life 

most  irrepressible,  most  immediately 
compelling,  has  no  monopoly  on  the 
hungers  of  life.  In  the  world  to-day 
there  are  in  reality  more  people  starv- 
ing for  love  than  for  bread.  There  is 
more  heart-hunger  than  body-hunger 
— more  unsatisfied  yearning  for  sym- 
pathy, affection,  companionship,  kind- 
ness, and  appreciation  than  for  food. 

These  hungers  are  not  a  modern 
invention.  They  are  as  old  as  history. 
They  began  in  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
When  Adam's  bodily  hunger  was 
recognized  and  great  stores  of  growing 
food  insured  him  against  starvation, 
the  hunger  of  his  heart  was  appeased 
by  a  wife.  Then  the  mind-hunger  of 
this  first  married  couple  was  appealed 
to  under  the  pretense  that  they  should 
know  the  difference  between  good  and 
evil.  There  was  a  soul-hunger  still  to 


The  Hungers  of  Life          65 

be  met.  They  had  the  promise  that 
they  would  "be  as  gods."  There  was 
no  evil  in  the  four  hungers  but  merely 
that  two  of  these  were  appealed  to  by 
lying  and  treachery.  The  wrong  goods 
were  delivered — that  is  all. 

We  have  all  these  four  hungers  be- 
cause we  are  human — because  we  are 
higher  than  the  animals.  These  hun- 
gers are  aspirations  and  were  meant  to 
be  satisfied.  They  mean  man's  true 
expression — not  false  repression.  Life 
is  a  continuous  battle  for  our  hungers. 

True  living  means  realizing  the  real 
hungers  of  ourselves  and  others  and 
seeking  to  satisfy  them.  False  living 
means  vainly  humouring  morbid  ac- 
quired appetites.  At  Thanksgiving- 
tide  and  at  the  Christmas  season  the 
cup  of  our  gratitude  and  kindness 
specially  overflows  to  others.  Let  us 


The  Hungers  of  Life 

at  this  time,  and  at  all  others,  realize 
that  feeding  the  body-hungry  is  simply 
an  initial  duty.  It  is  a  first  privilege 
of  human  brotherhood,  good  enough  as 
a  beginning  but  not  as  a  full  story. 

Let  us  give  others  not  merely  what 
we  have  but  what  we  are.  Let  us  feed 
their  higher  hungers,  not  on  set  days 
and  occasions,  but  in  unbroken  years 
of  such  days.  Let  us  make  this  spirit 
— like  a  persistent,  pervading  perfume 
of  inspiration — ever  sweeten  our  own 
lives  and  those  of  others. 

Mind-hunger  is  a  craving  for  intel- 
lectual food.  It  may  be  an  insatiable 
desire  for  education.  It  may  reveal  it- 
self in  a  passion  for  books,  in  securing 
a  few  shelves  of  certain  books  for  one's 
very  own.  It  may  mean  the  joy  of 
possession  of  not  mere  books  but  of 
just  those  selected  volumes  that  mean 


The  Hungers  of  Life          67 

silent  friends  talking  ever  inspiration 
to  one's  eyes  instead  of  to  one's  ears. 
This  is  what  makes  a  package  of  old 
magazines  or  old  books  a  treasure  in 
some  lonely  home  after  they  have  out- 
lived their  usefulness  elsewhere. 

This  mind-hunger  may  be  keen  and 
on  edge  for  fine  music,  the  hearing  of 
which  would  be  a  stimulus  at  the  time 
and  later  a  golden  memory ;  while  to 
many  of  the  box-holders  it  is  merely  a 
social  duty,  a  bit  of  a  pose  and  some- 
thing to  talk  about.  The  mind-hungry 
may  long  to  have  the  privilege  of  hear- 
ing a  certain  great  lecturer,  or,  some- 
times, there  is  a  rushing  wave  of  desire 
to  speak  freely,  fully,  frankly  to  some 
one  who  seems  to  live  on  the  intel- 
lectual heights,  and  to  feed  on  his 
words  that  if  actually  given  personally, 
in  quickening  advice  or  inspiration, 


The  Hungers  of  Life 


would  bring  real  joy.  These  are  but 
suggestions  of  the  mind's  hunger  for 
that  which  it  needs  and  craves. 

The  great  heart-hunger  of  humanity 
is — loneliness.  Loneliness  is  the  heart's 
realization  that  no  one  is  self-sufficient, 
no  one  is  complete  alone.  It  is  always 
the  restless  yearning,  in  some  form,  for 
God's  greatest  gift  to  man — love.  We 
seek  it  ever,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, as  the  great  gnarled  roots  of 
trees,  guided  by  some  divine  instinct, 
ever  reach  out  in  their  constant  search 
for  the  water  that  means  life  to  them. 
The  hungers  for  friends,  sympathy,  ap- 
preciation, confidence,  companionship 
are  simply  phases,  degrees,  or  tenden- 
cies of  hunger  for  the  finest  human 
love — love  of  one  alone  for  us  alone. 

In  a  great  city  there  are  countless 
thousands  of  men  and  women  leading 


The  Hungers  of  Life          69 

lives  of  loneliness  ;  they  are  just  heart- 
hungry  for  the  affection  they  feel  is 
their  due  and  their  right.  It  is  not  the 
burden  of  daily  toil,  the  smallness  of 
the  reward,  the  dull  round  of  daily 
duties  that  make  them  heart-weary, 
but  that  benumbing  sense  of  loneliness 
that  sometimes  sweeps  over  the  soul 
like  a  mighty  tide  and  submerges  every 
thought  but  of — hunger  for  affection. 

They  just  feel  hungry  for  some  one  to 
whom  they  can  tell  the  little  incidents 
that  make  up  their  days,  some  one  to 
be  genuinely  interested,  some  one  to 
share  their  little  joys  and  sorrows,  some 
one  to  smooth  away  the  lines  of  care 
and  worry,  some  one  whose  eyes  will 
brighten  at  their  approach,  some  one  to 
whom  they  will  be  necessary,  some  one 
who  will  fill  their  sky  with  the  sun- 
shine of  love  and  the  glow  of  trust  and 


jo  The  Hungers  of  Life 

confidence.  They  want — some  one  to 
live  for,  some  one  to  work  for,  some 
one  to  need  them. 

It  is  not  always  clearly  formulated  or 
even  clearly  understood,  for  the  heart's 
feeling  is  often  beyond  its  power  to  ex- 
press. It  may  be  only  a  vague,  rest- 
less unsatisfiedness,  but  all  the  energies 
and  emotions  of  the  heart  silently 
sweep  themselves  in  one  direction,  as 
rivers,  unknowing  why,  seek  the  ocean. 
And,  with  this  heart-hunger  satisfied, 
the  magic  hand  of  Time  seems  to  have 
changed  suddenly  the  whole  perspec- 
tive of  life.  The  harsh  outlines  of 
cares  and  troubles  seem  softened  and 
transformed,  as  the  moon  throws  a 
glorifying  silver  light  of  interpretation 
over  even  the  most  prosaic  of  scenes. 

When  this  heart-hunger  is  unap- 
we  may  take  cocaines  of  dis- 


The  Hungers  of  Life          71 

traction  that  dull  the  pain  they  do  not 
remove.  We  do  a  thousand  little 
things  to  kill  the  time  that  hangs 
heavy  on  our  hands,  but  this  is  not 
true  living.  It  is  the  dullness  of 
drugged  emotion  that  keeps  us  from 
our  best  selves.  It  does  not  bring  true 
peace ;  it  is  only — numbness.  Real 
peace  comes  from  finding  oneself — tem- 
porary oblivion  from  losing  oneself. 

This  heart-hunger  is  so  real  that  it  is 
not  limited  to  those  leading  lives  of  real 
loneliness.  It  finds  itself  in  homes 
where  there  is  the  semblance  of  real 
companionship,  but  not  its  actuality, — 
its  cold,  bare  anatomy,  not  its  living, 
pulsing,  vitalizing  soul. 

There  is  a  divine  paradox  in  feeding 
the  heart-hungry.  As  we  seek  to  ap- 
pease the  heart-hunger  of  another  our 
own  grows  less.  The  food  increases  in 


72          The  Hungers  of  Life 


the  using,  as  at  the  miraculous  feeding 
of  the  four  thousand  at  the  sermon  in 
the  wilderness — what  remained  after  all 
were  fed  was  more  than  the  original 
supply.  Let  us  make  others  forget 
their  heart-hunger  in  the  kindness, 
thoughtfulness,  consideration,  sym- 
pathy, companionship,  and  affection  we 
can  give  them.  Let  us  forget  our  own 
heart-hunger  in  feeding  others,  even 
though  we  can  silence  ours  in  no  other 
way.  No  one  occupies  so  humble  a 
position  that  he  cannot  thus  help. 

There  are  times  in  the  life  of  all 
when,  weak  and  worn  with  the  struggle, 
the  ebb-tide  of  hope  seems  to  carry  out 
with  it  all  inspiration,  all  impulse,  all 
incentive.  In  the  darkest  night  of  a 
great  loss,  a  paralyzing  pain,  or  a  voice- 
less grief  we  seem  to  lose  our  very  bear- 
ings on  life,  and  weak,  trembling  hands 


The  Hungers  of  Life          73 

hold  the  useless  compass  of  our  pur- 
pose. We  see  nothing  to  live  for,  and 
life  does  not  then  seem  worth  liv- 
ing. At  such  an  hour  gentle  words  of 
comfort  and  courage  and  companion- 
ship— words  that  come  glowing  from 
the  very  soul  of  another,  not  empty, 
cheap  commonplaces  that  roll  flippantly 
from  the  tongue — come  as  living  food 
to  the  hungry  heart. 

When  the  trials  of  the  individual 
life  seem  hard  to  bear  and  the  failures  of 
our  best  efforts  tempt  us  to  overthrow 
the  altars  of  our  ideals,  and  all  that  we 
have  held  high  and  best  seems  empty 
delusion,  we  feel  this  hunger  for  a  lov- 
ing friend,  a  counsellor,  a  guide.  We 
want  fresh,  kindly  eyes  of  those  who 
really  care  to  look  at  our  problems,  to 
help  us  to  regain  our  faith  in  hu- 
manity, our  belief  in  ourselves,  our  trust 


74          The  Hungers  of  Life 

in  the  certainty  of  the  final  triumph 
of  right,  love,  justice  and  truth. 

To  feed  the  heart-hungry  we  must 
give  the  positives  of  our  life,  not  the 
negations.  We  must  give  our  strength, 
not  our  weakness  ;  our  certainties,  not 
our  fears ;  our  radiant  finalities  of  de- 
cision, not  our  unsettled  dilemmas. 

If  we  were  to  transform  "  feed  the 
hungry "  from  a  mere  phrase  into  a 
vital  impulse  finding  expression  in 
every  day  of  our  living,  we  would 
bring  the  very  spirit  of  the  millennium 
into  the  expanding  circle  of  our  indi- 
vidual life  and  influence.  We  would 
realize  that  these  hungers  are  real  and 
were  given  to  man  that  they  might  be 
satisfied.  They  are  not  to  be  confused 
with  mere  morbid  appetites,  counterfeit 
hungers — man-made  out  of  the  idle 
hours  of  his  folly.  These  must  be 


The  Hungers  of  Life          75 

killed — starved  into  submission,  domi- 
nated, mastered,  vanquished  by  the 
individual  who  would  be  true  to  his 
— kingship  over  himself. 

Soul-hunger  has  its  infinite  phases 
as  well  as  heart-hunger.  Soul-hunger 
is  man's  insatiate  desire  to  know  the 
truth  of  the  life  now  and  the  life  here- 
after. Soul-hunger  has  existed  in  man 
since  the  beginning  of  time.  All  the 
religions  of  the  world  are  simply  sys- 
tems to  feed  this  spiritual  hunger. 
Hunger  is  the  consciousness  of  incom- 
pleteness. The  belief  in  immortality, 
another  world,  a  new  life,  is  simply  the 
— last  great  hunger  of  the  soul. 


VI 

Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 


F  in  the  desert,  a  lone 
traveller,  in  angry  pro- 
test against  the  hard- 
ships of  his  journey, 
were  to  slash  with  his 
knife  his  goatskin  water-bag,  letting 
the  hot  sand  drink  up  the  water  that 
means  health,  strength,  life  itself,  it 
would  seem — supreme  folly. 

If  a  shipwrecked  sailor  were  to  slip 
voluntarily  from  his  rude  raft  of  spars 
in  mid-ocean,  thrust  it  far  from  him  in 
disgust  that  it  were  not  a  finely  up- 
holstered boat,  and,  forsaking  it,  trust 
himself  alone  to  the  powers  of  winds 
and  waves  and  darkness,  it  would  seem 

— contempt  for  the  mercies  left  him. 
76 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  77 

If  we  were  to  see  a  man  idly  roll 
a  hundred-dollar  bill  into  a  splint, 
hold  a  lighted  match  to  it  and  watch 
the  charred  fragments  fall  to  the  floor 
as  a  dead  memorial  of  uselessness, — we 
would  remember  it  for  a  lifetime.  We 
would  tell  the  story  many  times  in  the 
years  to  come.  We  would  dilate  on 
the  waste,  the  folly,  the  great  possibili- 
ties for  good  and  helpfulness  wantonly 
sacrificed  to  vanity  and  vandalism. 

In  our  every-day  life  there  are  count- 
less instances  of  happiness  thrown 
away  just  as  foolishly  for  a  trifle, — 
perhaps  but  the  puny  gratification  of  a 
moment.  It  seems  more'  hopelessly 
inexcusable  than  to  cast  aside  a  pearl 
and  save  the  empty  useless  oyster  shell 
that  enclosed  the  treasure. 

Our  happiness  rarely  dies  a  natural 
death.  We  slay  it  with  our  own  hand 


78  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 

or  others  kill  it  for  us.  The  veriest 
trifle  may  keep  it  alive,  the  veriest 
trifle  may  kill  it,  and  yet  selfishly, 
blindly,  we  still  the  heart  of  our 
own  happiness  or  that  of  others.  We 
may  even  irreverently  throw  the  blame 
on  the  scheme  of  the  universe — when 
we  alone  are  at  fault. 

Happiness  dqes_not  consist  of  what 
we  have  but_what  we  are;  not_jn 
our  possessions  but  in  our  attitude 
towards  them.  It  is  the  serenity  of  the 
soul  in  the  presence  of  a  present  joy. 
It  is  not  absolute,  requiring  certain 
fixed  conditions  ;  it  is  relative.  What 
would  be  a  fast  for  one  might  prove  a 
royal  feast  for  another.  Happiness 
does  not  always  require  success,  pros- 
perity or  attainment.  It  is  often  the 
joy  of  hopeful  struggle,  consecration 
of  purpose  and  energy  to  some  good 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  79 

end.  Real  happiness  ever  has  its  root 
in  unselfishness — its  blossom  in  love  of 
some  kind.  We  make  or  mar  our  own 
happiness  and  that  of  others  to  a  larger 
degree  than  we  are  willing  to  admit. 
It  is  easier  to  pose  as  victim  of  con- 
ditions than  to  prove  oneself  victor. 

The  soul  of  our  happiness  may  be 
— love.  This  love  may  be  so  fine  and 
great  and  simple  and  it  so  fills  our  life 
that  it  leaves  no  room  for  pain,  as  light 
crowds  out  darkness.  It  may,  with  its 
Midas  touch,  turn  even  our  trials  and 
troubles  into  the  gold  of  sweetness, 
strength  and  consolation.  It  may  stand 
ever  between  us  and  the  world — as  a 
bulwark  keeps  back  the  sea.  It  may 
become  to  us  an  angel  of  hope  holding 
our  hand  with  gentle  pressure  when 
p^  the  clouds  hang  low,  sustaining  us 
when  the  way  of  life  seems  hard. 


80  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 

This  honest  love  may  ever  trust  us  ; 
forgiving  and  forgetting  may  be  its  at- 
mosphere. It  may  inspire  us,  recreate 
us,  give  wings  to  us  when  downcast,  a 
new  shield  to  faith  and  new  heart  to 
energy.  We  may  have  this  great  hap- 
piness all  our  own,  firm  in  our  grasp, 
yet  for  a  mere  trifle — we  may  throw  it 
away,  or  let  it  fall  gradually  from  us — 
like  pearls  dropping,  one  by  one,  silent 
and  unnoted,  from  a  broken  necklace. 

We  let  some  petty,  mean  trait  of 
ours,  some  weakness  we  should  master 
through  self-control,  cheat  us  of  our 
Iiappiness.  We  have  held  some  penny 
of  momentary  satisfaction  so  close  to 
our  eyes  that  it  eclipses  the  sun  of  our 
happiness.  A  foolish  jealousy  that 
deadened  our  ears  to  explanation,  that 
shut  our  eyes  to  the  truth  and  that 
stilled  our  tongue  when  it  would  speak 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  8 1 

the  words  of  faith  we  could  hardly 
keep  back — we  have  let  this  jealousy, 
this  snap  judgment,  expressive  not  of 
real  love  but  of  wounded  pride,  swal- 
low up  our  happiness — as  the  ocean 
engulfs  a  treasure-ship. 

We  may  let  idle  gossip,  false  sym- 
pathy, imbecile  advice  from  those  who 
know  absolutely  nothing  about  our 
real  condition,  shut  us  from  love  and 
faith,  breed  doubt  and  suspicion,  and 
choke  trust  as  by  the  fumes  of  some 
noxious  gas.  We  may  let  some  other 
folly  which  comes  from  our  false  inter- 
pretation cheat  us  of  our  happiness  like 
one  ignorant  of  the  meaning  of  a  deed 
— signing  away  a  fortune. 

And  when  it  is  all  over  we  may  not 
have  the  moral  courage  to  go  back,  as 
we  should.  When  later,  conscience 
holds  in  a  bitter  hour  of  realization 


82  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 

and  loneliness  its  sad  post-mortem  over 
the  dead  happiness,  it  may  be  a  very 
poor  satisfaction  to  know  that  we  killed 
a  love  that  we  needed  and  that  needed 
us — for  such  a  trifle. 

Friendship  that  meant  much  in  our 
happiness,  that  was  rest,  refuge  and 
joy,  may  be  thrown  away  for  a  trifle. 
Friends,  real  friends,  are  rare  in  the 
individual  life.  We  cannot  have  many 
of  them.  They  do  not  come  in  bunches 
like  bananas.  They  are  never  found 
ready-made  at  all.  They  are  formed 
by  weathering  the  same  gales  of  fate 
together,  by  standing  the  heat  of  con- 
flict together,  by  kinship  of  mind  and 
heart,  by  common  interest  in  a  com- 
mon ideal,  by  basic  understanding, 
mutual  dependence,  thorough  respect 
and  loyalty  that  grows  stronger  as  need 
grows  greater.  Acquaintances  we  may 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  83 

have  many,  but  acquaintanceship  is —  \ 
merely  the  grapes  of  possibility  from  <. 
which  the  rich  wine  of  friendship  is  * 
aged  and  mellowed. 

Friends  are  usually  necessary  to 
happiness.  Robinson  Crusoe  could 
hardly  have  been  genuinely  happy 
in  his  isolation,  no  matter  how  he 
kept  his  optimism  breathing  by  fre- 
quent applications  of  oxygen  from  the 
tank  of  his  philosophy.  Even  love 
does  not  long  satisfy  unless  there  is 
in  it  real  friendship  and  companion- 
ship. Love  is,  in  reality,  only  a 
supreme,  unique  brand  of  perfected 
friendship.  But  we  may  throw  this 
element  in  happiness  away  in  a  mood 
of  selfishness  or  blindness. 

For  the  empty  pleasure  of  a  clever, 
cutting  taunt  we  may  give  a  stab- 
thrust  that  may  kill  a  friendship.  We 


84  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 


may  take  the  kindly  expressions  of  our 
friend  as  a  matter  of  course,  demand- 
ing as  a  right  what  belongs  to  us  as  a 
courtesy.  You  cannot  force  a  spon- 
taneity any  more  than  you  can  make 
the  bud  a  full-blown  rose  by  forcibly 
opening  its  petals.  The  bud  becomes 
a  rose  by  natural  expansion  from 
within.  A  friend's  need  is  our  op- 
portunity. A  momentary  neglect  or 
coolness  at  a  psychologic  moment, 
when  the  tired  heart  needs  sympathy, 
encouragement  or  help  to  the  utmost, 
may  begin  the  death  of  a  friendship. 

Some  people  like  the  dividends  on 
friendship,  but  not  its  assessments. 
They  really  do  not  need  a  friend,  they 
want  a  bank.  When  there  is  not 
mutual  helpfulness — not  necessarily 
the  same  in  kind  or  in  degree,  but  the 
helpfulness  in  which  each  gives  freely 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  85 

his  best  to  the  other  as  naturally  as  a 
flower  exhales  perfume — the  friendship 
is  like  a  patent  that  is  nearing  its  time 
of  expiration. 

Ingratitude  kills  friendship  or 
rapidly  attenuates  it  to  a  point  where 
it  must  die  of  anaemia.  If  we  value 
our  happiness  or  our  friend,  let  us 
gladly  expend  the  time,  energy  and 
thought  required  to  keep  the  relation- 
ship— free,  clear,  fresh-running  as  a 
mountain  brook.  An  idle  flippant 
breach  of  confidence,  at  a  moment 
when  it  seemed  almost  calculated 
treachery,  may  kill  a  friendship  or  a 
happiness  growing  for  years. 

A  hasty  surrender  to  temper,  a  sud- 
den heat  of  anger  may  be  followed  by 
a  drop  of  sixty  degrees  in  the  tempera- 
ture of  a  relation  between  two  people. 
It  may  destroy  a  real  happiness  as  a 


186  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 

blizzard  may,  in  a  single  night,  ruin  a 
fruit  field.  There  may  be  an  unkind 
letter,  a  cruel  fling  of  cynicism  or  an 
unjust  slur  or  sneer  that  meant  only 
venting  our  own  sad  disappointment, 
chagrin,  or  deferred  hope,  on  an  inno- 
cent friend.  We  may  have  been  con- 
scious of  the  injustice  before  the  words 
were  cold  on  our  lips  but  some  mean 
streak  in  our  nature  may  have  kept  us 
from  calling  them  back. 

We  are  often  happy  in  our  hopes, 
our  plans,  our  purposes  or  our  posses- 
sions and  let  the  envy  of  another  poison 
the  well-spring  of  our  happiness. 
Envy  is  a  drug  that  stupefies  energy. 
It  does  not  give  us  what  seems  so 
beautiful  to  us  merely  because  it  be- 
longs to  another.  The  very  thing  we 
desire  might  not  fit  us  nor  agree  with 
us  even  if  we  could  get  it.  Have  you 


Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness  87 

ever  noticed  how  much  more  interest- 
ing your  neighbour's  paper  looks  than 
your  own,  as  you  let  your  eye  wander 
to  what  your  seat-mate  is  reading? 
Have  you  ever  felt  that  the  meal  some 
one  else  has  ordered  looks  much  more 
appetizing  than  yours,  even  though 
you  could  have  had  precisely  the  same 
if  you  had  desired  ? 

Happiness  does  not  come  from  com- 
parison of  our  lives  with  others ;  we 
have  our  own  life  to  live  at  its  best, 
not — the  lives  of  others.  Let  us  get 
what  we  can  from  our  own  paper,  our 
own  meal,  our  own  life.  Let  us  live 
so  intently,  so  bounteously  that  the 
joy  from  our  life  will  overflow  into 
others,  will  make  us  better  able  to  help 
others,  will  transform  us  into  castles 
of  refuge  to  those  who  need  us. 

Nursing  a  grievance  does  not  bring 


8  Throwing  Away  Our  Happiness 

happiness.  Being  hypersensitive  to 
the  opinions  others  have  of  us  puts  us 
into  the  false  position  of  making  their 
approval  our  court  of  appeals  instead 
of  our  own  conscience  and  self-respect. 
False  pride  too  often  betrays  us  into 
surrendering  the  realities  of  life  for  the 
poor  satisfaction  of  an  hour.  Some 
persons  are  so  busy  putting  poultices 
on  their  wounded  vanity  that  they  let 
their  happiness  die  of  inanition.  Liv- 
ing each  day  at  our  best,  simply,  sin- 
cerely, sweetly,  is  the  surest  way  to  win 
happiness  and — to  hold  it. 


N  walking  along  a  moun- 
tain road  there  is  some- 
times a  sudden  sharp 
turn  where,  by  seeming 
magic,  the  narrow  path 
is  transformed  into  the  entrance  of  a 
vast  panorama  of  Nature.  We  seem 
stunned  as  we  involuntarily  stop  short, 
rest  and  surrender  to  its  majesty.  The 
view  exalts  us,  glorifies  us,  inspires 
us.  We  have  a  new  high  restful 
ground  of  contemplation.  We  have  a 
new  test  of  values,  a  new  base  of  inter- 
pretation, a  new  relation  to  life. 

The  hamlets  and  villages  in  the  val- 
ley bear  a  new  strange  dignity — they 
89 


90     At  the  Turn  of  the  Road 

have  become  integral  parts  of  a  great 
picture.  The  colours  of  trees  and 
flowers  blend  from  mere  single  effects 
into  a  wondrous  harmony.  We  are 
seeing  the  birth,  life  and  death  of  a 
river  as  an  eagle  might  watch  it  from 
his  nest  on  the  crags.  The  fields  of  a 
hundred  farmers  become  one  great  farm. 
And  far  beyond,  we  can  see  the  great 
ocean — whitening  the  shore  with  its 
billows  leagues  away. 

The  complex  has  become  simple 
absolute  has  now  become  relative  ; 
isolated  has  become  associated ; 
trifling  great,  and  the  great  greater 
detail  losing  none  of  its  individuality 
has  an  added  value  like  a  jewel  set  in 
a  crown.  There  is  a  finer  sense  of  jus- 
tice in  our  judgment,  the  ozone  of  the 
higher  levels  seems  tonic  to  our  soul,  a 
sweet  peace  fills  our  heart. 


At  the  Turn  of  the  Road      91 

As  we  look  backward  the  narrow 
path,  doled  out  to  us  in  installments  as 
our  weary  feet  toiled  up  the  long  as- 
cent, now  stands  out  clear — for  its  en- 
tire length.  We  begin  to  see  it  as  a 
type  of  our  whole  life,  as  the  angels 
must  view  it  with  greater  charity  from 
the  higher  wisdom  of  their  truer  per- 
spective. Rest,  retrospection,  reflection, 
realization,  and  revelation  are  giving 
us  a  fine  new  view-point,  a  new  chance 
to  get  our  moral  bearings,  to  tune  our 
life  to  bring  out  its  highest,  purest 
notes — at  the  turn  of  the  road. 

Humanity  tends  to  take  narrow 
views  of  life  and  its  problems  instead 
of  occasional  great,  broad  sweeps.  It 
is  near-sightedness  of  the  soul  that  per- 
mits the  unworthy  to  throw  the  really 
big  things  into  the  shadow.  We  hold 
some  trifle  of  care  or  worry  close  to  our 


92     At  the  Turn  of  the  Road 


vision  asajeweler  with  an  awning  over 
his  eye  peers  into  a  watch.  We  let  one 
sorrow  be  the  grave  of  many  joys,  one 
ingratitude  smother  many  of  our  kind- 
nesses struggling  for  expression,  one 
weakness  within  us  sap  the  strength 
from  many  virtues.  We  need  the  brac- 
ing inspiration,  the  revealing  illumina- 
tion of  the  larger  vision.  The  turn  of 
the  road,  in  its  highest  sense,  is  not  a 
place  to  stay — we  have  to  fight  the 
battle  of  life.  It  is  only  an  arsenal  of 
supply — not  a  battle-field  of  action. 

The  beginning  of  the  new  year  is  a 
natural,  sharp  turn  in  the  road  of  time. 
Here  we  may  wisely  rest  a  while,  and 
in  the  peace  and  quiet  and  calm  of  self- 
communion  see  the  long  stretch  of  the 
road  of  a  single  twelvemonth.  It  is 
built  imperishably  of  short  steps  of 
living — from  moment  to  moment. 


At  the  Turn  of  the  Road     93 

Many  of  the  purposes  for  which  we 
laboured  and  struggled,  in  our  narrow, 
close,  selfish  absorption,  seem  poor, 
petty  and  puny  when  seen  from  the 
turn  of  the  road.  The  structure  of 
some  effort  we  thought  marble  now  is 
shown  in  its  sickening  sham  as  a  hasty 
affair  of  show  and  pretense,  made  of 
staff,  that  could  not  stand  the  wear  and 
tear  and  test  of  time.  It  was  not  built 
on  square  lines  of  character,  of  the  best 
that  was  in  us.  It  lacked  strength, 
sincerity,  simplicity.  The  material 
was  made  up  of  policy  and  selfishness 
put  together  on  hurried  plans.  It  was 
a  failure  ;  it  cannot  be  rebuilt ;  but  it  is 
worth  only  a  passing  regret  and  a 
realization  of  the  lesson  of  its  non-suc- 
cess— at  the  turn  of  the  road. 

We  now  see  how  many  times  the 
paralyzing  hand  of  procrastination 


94     At  the  Turn  of  the  Road 

touched  the  good  deeds  we  meant  to 
do,  the  roseate  dreams  we  longed  to 
transform  into  actualities.  We  wished 
to  do  and  we  wanted  to  do  but  we  did 
not  will  to  do.  The  fault  was  not  in 
conditions  but  in — us.  We  were  not 
equal  to  opportunities.  It  is  a  false 
philosophy  that  teaches  that  opportu- 
nity calls  only  once  at  any  man's 
house.  It  comes  with  the  persistency 
of  an  importunate  creditor,  always  in  a 
new  guise,  and  clamours  for  admission, 
but  we  may  be — too  busy  to  answer 
the  bell. 

Habits  that  we  had  determined  to 
master,  to  bring  into  sweet  harmony 
with  our  highest  self,  may  still  stalk 
large  and  insolent  before  us.  They 
may  seem  to  taunt  us  that  they  are 
stronger  than  we.  They  were  never 
made  in  a  day  and  cannot  be  mastered 


At  the  Turn  of  the  Road     95 

in  a  day.  An  hour  may  begin  the 
making  of  a  habit ;  an  hour  may  be- 
gin its  breaking.  Time,  with  heart 
and  mind  united  in  determination,  can 
conquer  any  evil  habit  or  create  and 
confirm  any  good  one. 

The  look  backward  from  the  turn  of 
the  road  should  inspire  us  by  making 
vivid  to  us  how  much  of  what  we 
feared  never  came  to  pass.  The  tyr- 
anny of  worry,  that  dominated  us  and 
held  us  for  months  trembling  slaves  to 
a  weak  fear,  that  dissipated  our  energy, 
dulled  our  thinking,  and  darkened  our 
mental  vision,  at  the  very  hours  that 
should  have  given  us  fullest  control  of 
our  best,  is  now  seen  as  an  enemy  to 
true  individual  growth.  It  means  a 
harder  fight  in  the  unending  battle 
against  worry  and  grief. 

The  broader  view  of  life  reveals  that 


96     At  the  Turn  of  the  Road 

the  only  great  things  in  life  are  trifles ; 
that  what  pained  us  most,  saddened 
our  hearts,  and  turned  our  hopes  to 
ashes  were  only  trifles — cumulating 
into  overwhelming  importance.  A 
cruel  word,  an  unkindness,  a  little 
misunderstanding  may  darken  a  day 
and  separate  us  from  one  we  love  or 
may  petrify  us  into  a  mood  of  doubt 
and  despair.  The  most  joyous  mo- 
ments of  life,  the  high  lights  in  the 
pictures  of  memory,  may  too  be  only 
trifles  of  kindness,  fine  expressions  of 
love,  simple  tributes  of  confidence  and 
trust  that  make  the  very  heart  smile 
— as  we  remember. 

Knowing  the  right  is  useless  unless 
— we  practice  it.  Realizing  our  weak- 
ness is  profitless  unless — we  seek  to 
change.  We  may  even  grow  so  com- 
fortably reconciled  to  faults  and  fail- 


At  the  Turn  of  the  Road     97 

ings  as  to  accept  them  as  finalities,  to 
confess  them  and  even  boast  about 
them.  It  is  unjust  to  ourselves  and 
unjust  to  others.  Some  people  treat 
their  faults  as  though  they  were  flaws 
in  the  Portland  vase  of  a  noble  nature 
and  as  if — pointing  them  out  were 
practically  banishing  them  forever. 

Nature  is  constantly  giving  us  new 
— turns  of  the  road.  It  may  be  a 
birthday  or  some  general  anniversary 
in  the  cycle  of  the  year.  It  may  be 
some  red-letter  day  in  the  private  cal- 
endar of  our  emotions  or  some  date 
eloquent  to  us  as  telling  of  some  joy- 
ous "  first  "  or  some  pathetic  "  last " 
time  in  the  sacred  diary  of  the  heart. 
It  may  be  a  supreme  sorrow,  an  ago- 
nizing sense  of  loss,  the  coming  of  a 
great  joy,  the  closing  of  some  epoch  in 
our  lives,  the  proving  of  the  actuality 


At  the  Turn  of  the  Road 

of  something  too  awful  for  us  even  to 
have  feared,  some  exultant  half-hour 
that  changes  irrevocably  all  our  living. 
These  and  numberless  other  days,  hours 
or  single  moments  may  bring  us  alone 
to — the  turn  of  the  road. 

Then  may  come  one  of  those  rare 
moments  of  life,  of  fine  spiritual  dis- 
cernment, of  luminous  revelation,  of 
coming  to  one's  highest  self,  when  the 
sordid,  the  mean,  the  temporary,  the 
selfish  are  stripped  in  an  instant  of 
their  garish  shams  and  tinsel.  Then 
the  real,  the  true,  the  eternal  stand  out 
in  their  majesty,  bathed  in  the  splen- 
dour and  glow  of  the  revealing  of  truth. 
In  such  a  spirit  the  very  tingle  of  the 
inspiration  of  the  infinite  fills  us.  We 
seem  born  again  to  new,  better,  and 
greater  things,  for  we  have  seen  the 
divine  vision — at  the  turn  of  the  road. 


VIII 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 


tice. 


LINDFOLDED ;  holding 
in  her  left  hand  a  bal- 
ance ;  in  her  right  a 
sword — thus  they  pic- 
ture the  goddess  of  Jus- 
This  is  satire  in  symbolism.  It 
seems  the  work  of  some  cunning  cynic 
concentrating  in  a  single  figure  the 
worst  elements  of  human  injustice  and 
grimly  labelling  it  "  Justice."  It  is 
worse  than  a  label — it  is  a  libel.  This 
goddess  of  Justice  has  her  eyes  deliber- 
ately closed  to  the  facts.  She  holds 
ostentatiously  on  high  the  scales  of 
justice  but  never  sees  their  movement. 

She  has  her  hand  tight-pressed  on  the 
99 


Iioo    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 
sword  of  punishment  before  even  hear- 
ing the  testimony.     She  is  excluding 
all  evidence  but  one — hearsay. 

This  is  /the  goddess  of  Justice  that 
dominates  society  to-day.  The  true 
Justice  should  be  open-minded,  open- 
eyed,  open-eared,  open-lipped,  open- 
handed.  Serene,  free,  unhampered  by 
bonds  without  or  by  prejudice  within, 
she  should  have  one  object — to  discover 
the  truth.  Nothing  should  escape  her 
searching  vision ;  no  faintest  whisper 
elude  her  eager  ears  ;  with  finest  honest 
wisdom  should  she  question,  and  with 
free  unencumbered  hands  investigate, 
test,  prove.  The  lamp  of  truth  should 
throw  its  dazzling  glow  of  illumination 
on  every  trifle  of  evidence.  The  bal- 
ance of  judgment  should  be  held  rigidly 
on  a  support  before  her,  not  suspended 
from — a  trembling  arm.  This  seems  a 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    101 

higher  and  truer  symbol  than — a  blind 
woman,  sporting  her  regalia. 

Character  is  not  a  simple,  uniform 
product.  It  cannot  be  judged  as  dress- 
goods — by  a  yard  or  so  of  sample  un- 
rolled from  a  bolt  on  the  counter.  It 
is  complex,  confused,  uncertain,  chang- 
ing, subject  to  moods  that  contradict 
our  conclusions.  While  knowing  all 
this  we  dare  to  construct  the  whole  life 
and  character  of  one  we  may  have 
never  even  met.  We  build  it  from  a 
few  hints,  slurs,  idle  comments,  or  the 
vague  rumours  or  absolute  lies  of  news- 
paper reports — as  scientists  reconstruct 
an  unknown  prehistoric  animal  from  a 
few  bones.  One  judges  a  painting  by 
the  full  view  of  the  whole  canvas  ;  sep- 
arate isolated  square  inches  of  colour 
are  meaningless.  Yet  we  dare  to  judge 
our  fellow  man  by  single  acts  and 


IO2    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 

words,  misleading  glimpses,  and  decep- 
tive moments  of  special  strain.  From 
these  we  magnify  a  mood  into  a  char- 
acter and  an  episode  into  a  life. 

There  is  entirely  too  much  human 
judging,  too  much  flippant  criticism  of 
the  acts  of  others.  Suspicion  is  per- 
mitted to  displace  evidence,  cheap 
shrewdness  to  banish  charity,  prejudice 
to  masquerade  as  judgment.  We  im- 
agine, we  guess,  we  speculate — then 
pass  on  through  the  medium  of  indis- 
creet speech  and  idle  gossip  what  may 
bring  bitterness,  sorrow,  heartache,  and 
injustice  to  others.  The  very  ones  we 
condemn  may  be  battling  nobly  under 
a  hail  of  trial  and  temptation  where 
we  might  fall  faint  in  the  trenches  or, 
lowering  our  colours,  drop  back  in 
hopeless  surrender. 

We  have  a  right  to  our  preferences, 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    103 

our  likes  and  dislikes,  our  impressions, 
our  opinions,  but  we  should  withhold 
final  judgment — as  an  honest  unpreju- 
diced juryman  keeps  his  verdict  in  sus- 
pense until  he  has  heard  and  tested  all 
of  the  evidence.  We  have  no  right  to 
let  prejudice  tyrannize  over  judgment 
and  kill — the  justice  of  the  soul.  We 
may  see  an  act  but  have  no  luminous 
revelation  of  the  motive  behind  it. 

We  idly  condemn  the  gaiety  of  some 
man  who  has  suffered  a  terrible  loss,  and 
term  him  heartless.  Perhaps  he  laughs 
only  to  keep  back  tears  that  would 
gush  like  a  torrent  from  his  heart  were 
he  less  brave.  We  criticise  the  parsi- 
mony of  some  one  when  it  really  means 
consecrated  generosity  to  some  one 
else.  Over-generous  forgiving  may 
seem  weakness — when  it  is  the  "  ninety 
times  nine  "  of  a  great  nature.  Love 


104    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 

at  its  height  may  seem  indifference. 
What  appears  conceit  may  be  only 
some  one's  attempt  to  recover  a  lost 
self-confidence  he  hungers  to  regain. 

Some  one's  fretfulness,  or  occasional 
outbursts  of  temper,  may  be  but  sparks 
of  protest  from  the  hidden  fires  of  a 
sad  life-story  or  some  bravely  borne 
illness  unknown  but  to  a  chosen  few. 
Meanness  may  in  reality  be  poverty  too 
proud  to  confess  itself.  We  hear  one 
side  of  many  a  story  and  judge  by  that 
alone.  We  judge  often  along  the  line 
of  our  least  mental  resistance.  Igno- 
rantly  we  condemn  a  man  for  vanity  be- 
cause we  would  be  vain  had  we  accom- 
plished his  work.  There  is  wide  dif- 
ference between  putting  yourself  in  an- 
other's place  and  putting  him  in  yours. 
The  one  is  an  attempt  at  wisdom  ;  the 
other  a  speculation  in  prejudice.  We 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    105 

misinterpret  motives,  do  not  know 
facts,  and  judge  from  wrong  standards. 

In  the  individual  life  we  realize  that 
there  are  times  when  everything  we 
do  or  say  misrepresents  us.  We  mean 
kindness  but  somehow  the  words 
sound  cross,  cruel  or  misleading. 
Without  intending  it  we  hurt  those 
who  are  dearest ;  we  regret  it,  know 
the  sad  effect  we  are  creating,  yet  we 
blunder  on  into  deeper  pitfalls.  We 
may  be  even  too  falsely  proud  to  ex- 
plain. We  are  all  out  of  key.  We  are 
tobogganing  down  the  incline  of  a  mood. 
We  may  not  understand  ourselves  and 
in  a  spirit  of  heart-hunger  may  long 
for  some  one  sweetly  and  gently  to 
comprehend  us,  to  see  us  truly,  despite 
— ourselves  and  our  acts. 

Knowing  this  labyrinthic  quality  in 
us  and  even  in  human  nature  at  its 


106    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 

best,  let  us  throw  the  golden  mantle  of 
love  and  kindness  and  justice  over 
every  thought  of  condemnation.  How 
can  we  judge  others  harshly  when  we 
do  not  know  ourselves  and  while  we 
suffer  so  much  from  the  misjudging 
from  others  ?  Let  us  live  in  the  open 
sunlight  of  love,  shutting  our  eyes 
in  charity  from  adverse  judging — just 
forgetting  much,  forgiving  much. 

Let  us  sweetly,  sincerely,  sympathet- 
ically seek  in  the  best  side  of  some 
one  we  know — his  real,  fine,  true 
self.  Let  us  think  of  the  fine  flowers 
and  ignore  the  weeds  as  temporary  in- 
vaders. This  may  prove  an  inspi- 
ration to  some  one  near  and  dear  to  us 
to  live  up  to  our  ideal  of  him,  to  be 
worthy  of  the  higher  levels  to  which 
our  faith  has  raised  him. 

Sometime*  situations  arise  between 


fft 

itween 

J 

•••••••••M^ 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    1 07 

friends  that  demand  rapid  judgment 
and  action.  Then  should  we  check  off 
the  items  carefully,  considering  truly 
both  sides  of  the  ledger  of  our  experi- 
ence. Before  pronouncing  sentence  let 
us  see  if  in  our  heart  of  hearts  we 
honestly  believe  our  verdict  fair,  just 
and  true.  Let  us  be  assured  it  is 
justice — not  prejudice,  pique,  temper, 
disappointment,  distorted  gossip,  or 
aught  else  that  is  eclipsing  the  justice 
of  our  judgment.  Our  injustice,  if 
such  there  be,  may  change  bitterly  the 
life  of  both. 

One  of  the  hardest  lessons  of  life  is 
to  learn  not  to  judge.  Perhaps  ninety 
per  cent,  of  the  adverse  criticism,  com- 
ment, and  judging  of  humanity  is  un- 
necessary and  serves  no  useful  purpose. 
It  is  not  our  business.  It  is  simply 
our  mere  impertinent  meddling  in  the 


io8    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 

affairs  of  others,  without  even  a  hope 
of  being  helpful  or  useful.  It  is  often 
what  we  would  most  quickly  resent 
— were  the  situations  reversed. 

There  are  times  in  every  life  when 
we  must  judge,  when  we  should  judge, 
and  when  it  is  vitally  important  that 
we  should  judge  wisely  and  justly. 
There  are  those  closely  associated  with 
us  in  love,  friendship  or  business — 
where  it  may  be  important  for  us  to 
understand  their  words,  their  acts, 
their  motives,  and  their  emotions  in  so 
far  as  they  affect  ours.  The  very  atti- 
tude of  not  judging  until  it  becomes 
necessary  gives  ever  dignity,  calmness, 
poise,  and  fineness  to  these  enforced 
judgments.  The  judgment  that  has 
been  dulled  by  constant  misuse,  like  a 
razor  that  has  been  used  to  sharpen 
pencils,  is  of  little  value  in  real  need. 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    109 

The  wisest  judgment  means  the  best 
head  cooperating  with  the  best  heart. 
It  is  kind,  honest,  charitable — seeking 
truth,  not  the  verifying  of  a  prejudice. 
It  says  ever,  in  prefacing  its  conclu- 
sions on  the  evidence  :  "  As  it  seems 
to  me,"  "  If  I  understand  it  aright," 
"  So  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  reason 
it,"  "  Unless  I  am  mistaken,"  or  simi- 
lar phrases.  These  represent  the  sus- 
pended judgment — with  no  tone  of  ab- 
solute finality.  They  show  a  willing- 
ness to  modify  the  verdict,  to  soften 
the  sentence,  or  to  order  a  new  trial  if 
new  evidence,  new  illumination,  or 
new  interpretation  can  be  produced. 

Only  through  sympathy  can  charac- 
ter be  rightly  understood.  Intolerance 
and  prejudice  poison  judgment.  Even 
our  worst  enemies  are  not  as  bad  as  we 
think  them.  When  Apelles,  the  Greek 


no    Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment 

painter,  made  a  portrait  of  Alexander, 
King  of  Macedon,  he  painted  the  mon- 
arch with  his  finger  on  a  scar  received 
in  battle  so  that  the  disfigurement  was 
not  evident.  Let  us  not  point  out  the 
scars  on  the  lives  and  characters  of 
those  around  us  but  let  the  kindly 
finger  of  charity  gently  obscure  them. 
To  kill  the  judgment  habit  where  it 
is  unnecessary,  we  must  silence  expres- 
sion, but  we  must  do  more — we  must 
learn  not  to  think  severe  judgment 
even  if  not  spoken.  If  we  do  judge 
severely  in  our  thought  it  colours  our 
acts  and  our  attitude.  When  tempted 
to  judge  let  us  ask — "  Is  it  necessary  ?  " 
When  hearing  gossip  let  us  ask — 
"  What  are  your  proofs  ?  "  We  should 
stifle  our  own  criticisms  and  silence 
those  of  others.  In  judging  others  let 
us  have  courage  to  say,  not  coldly  and 


Sitting  in  the  Seat  of  Judgment    in 

uncaring  but  from  the  depths  of  hu- 
man love  and  sympathy — "  I  really 
cannot  tell.  I  do  not  know." 

There  is  an  Oriental  legend  that  one 
day,  Christ,  wandering  through  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem,  came  suddenly  on 
an  idle  crowd  of  jeerers  over  the  dead 
body  of  a  dog.  Each  spoke  contemp- 
tuously, each  condemning  some  phase, 
each  contributing  some  meanness  to 
add  to  the  cruel  merriment.  Christ 
stood  silent  for  a  moment,  and  then, 
pointing  to  the  open  mouth  of  the  dead 
dog,  said — "  Ah,  but  no  pearls  are 
whiter  than  his  teeth."  This  spirit  of 
seeking  ever  the  best  side  in  our  daily 
living  would  absolutely  transform  it. 


IX 

The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities 

HE  world  needs  the  clar- 
ion call  of  a  great  in- 
spiration on  the  un- 
measured possibilities 
of  the  individual.  No 
man  that  ever  lived  exhausted  his  pos- 
sibilities. The  greatest  that  ever  shed 
the  glory  of  their  presence  on  this 
earth  of  ours  have  given  but  at  most 
a  few-sided  showing  of  the  lines  upon 
which  they  concentrated.  None  ever 
lived  the  full,  rounded,  perfect  flower- 
ing of  his  whole  nature — the  vastness 
of  his  possibility  remained  in  the 
silence  and  secrecy  of  the  unexpressed. 

Life  is   too  short   for  the  full  story. 
112 


The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    113 

The  feeling  of  the  incompleteness  of 
this  life,  its  unsatisfiedness,  is  a  strong 
base  of  belief  in — immortality. 

Let  us  throw  overboard  that  be- 
numbing philosophy  of  the  words  "  Re- 
member your  limitations  "  and  preach 
ever :  "  Remember  your  limitless  pos- 
sibilities." With  the  new  dignity 
added  to  the  individual  life  comes  a 
finer  realization  of  the  power  of  maxi- 
mum living  from  day  to  day,  a  large, 
firmer  grip  on  individual  problems. 
There  will  be  a  revelation  that  must 
tend  to  kill  shams  and  pretense.  There 
will  be  a  truer  attunement  with  the 
highest  real  things  in  life.  There  will 
not  be  the  folly — the  disheartening 
"  limitation  "  adage  so  fears — of  people 
attempting  to  succeed  at  once  in  lines 
where  only  genius  or  years  of  conse- 
crated effort  can  hope  to  achieve. 


114    The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities 

Man  is  not  put  into  the  world  as  a 
music-box  mechanically  set  with  a  cer- 
tain fixed  number  of  tunes,  but  as  a 
violin  with  infinite  possibilities.  This 
music  no  one  can  bring  forth  but  the 
individual  himself.  He  is  placed  into 
life  not  a  finality,  but  a  beginning ; 
not  a  manufactured  article,  but  raw 
material ;  not  a  statue,  but  an  unhewn 
stone  ready  alike  for  the  firm  chisel  of 
defined  purpose  or  the  subtle  attrition 
of  circumstances  and  conditions. 

It  is  only  what  a  man  makes  of  him- 
self that  really  counts.  He  must  dis- 
infect his  mind  from  that  weakening 
thought  that  he  has  an  absolutely  pre- 
determined capacity  like  a  freight-car 
with  its  weight  and  tonnage  painted 
on  the  side.  He  is  growing,  expansive, 
unlimited,  self-adjusting  to  increased 
responsibility,  progressively  able  for 


The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    115 

large  duties  and  higher  possibilities  as 
he  realizes  them  and  lives  up  to  them. 

Man  should  feel  this  sense  of  the 
limitless — physically,  mentally,  mor- 
ally, spiritually.  Newspaper  and  mag- 
azine stories  of  men  who  came  to  this 
country  with  seventy-six  cents  and 
now  own  thirty  million  dollars  and 
head  a  trust  tell  the  financial  side  of 
possibility.  It  is  here  deemed  unneces- 
sary to  give  new  appetizers  for  a  na- 
tional hunger — so  well  developed. 

From  the  physical  side  man  may  re- 
alize as  a  removed  "  limitation  "  that 
some  of  the  strongest,  most  healthy  and 
athletic  men  were  weaklings  in  child- 
hood and  even  young  manhood.  They 
made  themselves  anew  by  exercise,  out- 
door life,  sunshine,  simple  food  and 
adherence  to  the  laws  of  health  which 
constitute  the  common  sense  of  Nature. 


1 1 6    The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities 


There  is  no  loss  of  any  of  the  senses 
nor  of  limbs  that  has  proved  a  handi- 
cap fatal  to  success  of  those  great  ones 
who  had  cultivated  a  fine  contempt  for 
obstacles  that  dared  to  daunt  them. 

The  possibilities  of  mental  develop- 
ment stand  vindicated  in  the  splendid 
roster  of  the  great  ones  of  the  world 
who  with  smallest  opportunities  of 
education,  fought  their  way  to  the 
ranks  of  great  thinkers,  men  of  rare 
individuality,  and  real  leaders  in  the 
world's  advance  guard  to  the  higher 
things.  Never  were  books  so  cheap 
or  so  accessible  as  to-day  and  but  a 
trifle  of  time  consecrated  daily  to  this 
development  would  work  wonders  for 
him  who  not  merely  wishes  and  wants 
but  wills  to  realize  possibilities. 

No  one  in  life  occupies  a  position  so 
humble,  be  it  in  the  smallest  hamlet 


The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    117 

or  the  largest  city,  that  he  cannot  mani- 
fest his  moral  strength  and  exercise  it. 
There  is  none  so  obscure  that  he  can- 
not make  the  lives  of  those  around 
him  marvellously  changed,  brightened 
and  inspired  if  he  would  merely  pro- 
gressively live  up  to  his  expanding 
possibilities  in  the  way  of  kindness, 
thoughtfulness,  cheer,  good-will,  in- 
fluence and  optimism. 

Better  far  is  it  for  the  individual 
to  be  a  live  coal,  radiating  light  and 
heat  for  a  day,  than  to  be  an  icicle  for 
a  century.  It  is  better  to  be  an  oasis 
of  freshness  and  inspiration,  if  the 
oasis  be  no  larger  even  than  a  table- 
cloth, than  a  desert  of  dreariness — 
larger  than  the  Sahara.  We  can  all  be 
intensive,  even  if  we  cannot  yet  be  ex- 
tensive ;  deep,  if  we  cannot  be  wide  ; 
concentrated,  if  we  cannot  be  diffused 


1 1 8    The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities 

The  smallest  pool  of  water  can  mirror 
the  sun  ;  it  does  not  require  an  ocean. 
Let  us  live  up  to  our  possibilities  for  a 
single  day,  and  we  will  not  have  to  die 
to  get  to  heaven  ;  we  will  be  making 
heaven  for  ourselves  and  for  others 
right  here — to-day  on  this  little  spin- 
ning globe  we  call  the  earth. 

What  a  man  is  at  any  moment  of 
life  does  not  fix  what  he  may  become. 
It  is  not  necessarily  a  destination  ;  it 
may  be  merely  a  station ;  a  chapter, 
not  the  complete  story.  Progress  is 
but  the  continuous  revelation  of  pos- 
sibilities transformed  into  realities. 
We  see  the  running,  but  not  the  goal. 
It  is  not  results  that  are  the  true  test 
of  living,  for  they  may  lie  outside  the 
individual's  power  to  control,  but  it  is 
ever  the  moral  and  mental  qualities  he 
puts  into  the  struggle.  The  world's 


The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    119 

standard  of  judging  is  not  in  accord 
with  the  higher  ethics  of  the  soul. 
It  is  not  getting  the  best,  but  proving 
worthy  of  the  best,  that  is  the  revela- 
tion of  true  character. 

The  man  who  talks  airily  of  the 
things  he  would  do  if  only  he  had 
time,  unconscious  of  the  golden  hours 
of  wasted  opportunity  frittering  idly 
through  his  fingers,  had  better  wake 
up.  He  often  envies  those  who  have 
performed  some  marvel  in  self-educa- 
tion, when  but  a  small  section  of  the 
time  he  squanders  in  a  year  with  the 
lavish  recklessness  of  a  Monte  Cristo 
would  enable  him  to  learn  a  new  lan- 
guage. Every  hour  is  a  new  chariot 
of  time's  possibilities  that  might  be 
laden  with  rich  treasure,  but  if  man 
tacks  up  the  sign  "  no  freight,"  he 
should  not  complain  of  the  subsequent 


1 20    The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities 

barrenness  of  result.  The  roll  of  the 
great  leaders  in  human  thought  and 
effort  have  not  been  those  who  had  the 
best  opportunities,  but  those  who  made 
— the  best  use  of  them. 

There  are  men  battling  with  the  soil 
on  poor,  anemic  farms,  that  yield  but  a 
bare  living,  while  underneath  those 
acres  may  be  rich  veins  of  coal,  wells 
of  oil,  that  need  but  the  revealing,  or 
beds  of  other  minerals  that  mean  libera- 
tion from  the  slavery  of  poverty.  It  is 
not  easy  to  make  them  manifest,  but 
the  greater  treasures  of  the  individual's 
possibilities  within  his  own  heart,  mind 
and  life  he  can  bring  out  if  he  only 
will.  Self-confidence  is  a  virtue  that 
should  never  lead  a  single  life;  it 
should  be  wedded — to  tireless  energy. 

There  come  high-tide  moments  in  all 
lives  when  contemplating  some  heroic 


The  Inspiration  of  Possibilities    121 

deed,  when  our  ears  are  filled  with  the 
triumphal  music  of  a  great  thought, 
when  the  vitalizing  words  of  some  great 
thinker  or  teacher  reach  our  soul 
through  our  eyes  with  a  message  of 
illumination.  We  then  see  our  life  in 
new  perspective.  The  meanness  and 
emptiness  of  living  on  low  levels  shame 
the  soul  out  of  self-complacency,  and 
we  seem  to  see  wondrous  visions  of  our 
possibilities,  glimpses  of  what  we  might 
become.  It  is  a  coming  face  to  face 
with  our  higher  self  that  may  re-create 
our  lives  for  all  the  years  if  we  only 
will.  Let  us  realize  our  progressive 
possibilities,  make  them  real,  vital, 
growing,  not  uselessly  held — as  a  warm 
living  seed  may  rest  for  years  in  the 
dead  hand  of  a  mummy.  Realizing 
possibilities  is  the  soul  of  optimism, 
and  optimism  is  the  soul  of  living. 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 


ORGETTING  is  one  of 
the  fine  arts  of  living  at 
our  best.  It  is  not  that 
phase  of  non-remember- 
ing, where  a  name  or  a 
date  or  a  fact  has  not  strength  enough 
to  keep  itself  from  sinking  deep  into 
memory's  sea  of  oblivion.  Fine  forget- 
ting means  character  asserting  itself — 
not  mind  losing  itself.  It  is  the  blue 
pencil  of  wisdom — cutting  out  unneces- 
sary words  from  the  text  of  our  living. 
It  is  individual  kingship  determining 
what  thoughts  it  will  permit  to  reside 
in  its  kingdom.  It  is  the  exclusion  act 

of  the  soul — ejecting  the  unworthy  and 
122 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art     123 

the  undesirable.  A  great  editor  once 
said  :  "  The  true  secret  of  editing  is  to 
know  what  to  put  into  the  waste- 
basket."  Forgetting  is  the  soul's  place 
for  losing  discarded  thoughts,  depress- 
ing memories,  mean  ambitions,  false 
standards,  and  low  ideals. 

All  the  virtues,  vices,  and  qualities 
of  mental  and  moral  life  may  be  defined 
in  terms  of — forgetting  or  of  remem- 
bering. Selfishness  is  forgetting  others 
in  over-remembering  self.  Worry  is 
the  inability  to  forget  the  troubles  that 
may  never  happen.  Honour  is  remem- 
bered high  standards  made  evident  in 
acts.  Anger  is  the  explosion  of  an  over- 
heated memory.  Forgiveness  is  the 
heart's  forgetfulness  of  an  injury.  In- 
gratitude is  the  heart's  forgetfulness  of 
a  favour.  Habit  is  the  memory  of  acts 
making  repetition  easier.  Mercy  is  the 


124    Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

memory  of  human  weakness  tempering 
justice.  Envy  is  forgetting  one's  own 
possessions  in  over-remembering  those 
of  others.  Influence  is  the  remembered 
acts  of  one  inspiring  the  acts  of  others. 
Patience  is  forgetting  petty  troubles 
along  the  way  in  concentrating  thought 
on  the  goal.  Love  is  the  heart's  sweet- 
est memories  shrined  in  another. 

Forgetting  as  a  fine  art  has  two  dis- 
tinct phases :  learning  how  to  forget 
and  what  to  forget.  Forgetting  is  the 
heart's  eclipse  of  a  memory.  It  is  so 
easy  to  say  lightly  to  some  one  suffer- 
ing from  a  memory,  "  Oh,  just  forget  it 
all."  Those  of  us  who  have  sought 
honestly  and  bravely  to  fight  it  out  on 
the  silent  battle-field  of  the  soul  know 
that  forgetting  is  never  easy.  If  it  were 
easy  there  would  be  neither  credit, 
courage  nor  strength  in  mastering  it. 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art     125 

Those  people  who  tell  you  moral  bat- 
tles are  easy,  really  know  nothing 
about  it,  care  nothing  or  they  are  get- 
ting ready  to  tell  you  they  have  just 
remembered  an  appointment  and  must 
say  "  good-bye."  It  is  a  real  fight  but 
we  can  win  in  the  end — if  we  are  not 
afraid  of  a  quick,  hard  fight.  It  is 
better  than  a  long  siege  of  remember- 
ing that  lasts  for  years. 

Keeping  the  world  from  knowing 
our  pain  or  struggle  by  veiling  our 
sorrow  with  a  smile,  seeming  to  forget, 
is  fairly  easy  ;  but  this  is  not — real 
forgetting.  The  biggest  souls  find  it 
hardest  to  forget.  Trained  forgetting 
is  paradoxic.  We  cannot  forget  by 
trying  intensely  to  forget — this  merely 
deepens  and  gives  new  vitality  to  the 
memory.  True  forgetting  really  means 
finer  memory  ;  it  is  displacing  one 


126    Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

memorj'  by  another,  by  a  stronger  one, 
an  antidotal  one.  It  means  concen- 
trating on  the  second  phase  so  that  the 
first  is  weakened,  neutralized,  and 
faded  out  like  a  well-treated  ink-stain. 
It  is  removing  a  weed  from  the  garden 
of  thought  and  then  planting  a  live, 
sturdy  flower  in  its  stead.  It  is  culti- 
vating new  interests,  new  relations, 
new  activities.  Time  helps  wonder- 
fully, but  especially  when  we  go  into 
partnership  with  her. 

If  we  learn  to  forget  wisely  and  un- 
selfishly in  the  trifles  of  our  daily  liv- 
ing with  others,  we  shall  silently  accu- 
mulate higher  pressure  reserve  power 
for  our  own  later  needs.  Let  us  forget 
thorns  of  daily  living  in  remembering 
roses  of  its  possibility  ;  forget  things 
that  pain  in  remembering  unnoted 
reasons  for  thankfulness ;  forget  the 


Forgetting  a s  a  Fine  Art     1 27 

weakness  of  those  around  us  in  seek- 
ing to  discover  wherein  they  are  strong. 
Let  us  forget  the  disappointments  in 
the  courage  of  new  determination  ;  for- 
get the  little  wrong  we  have  suffered 
from  our  friend,  in  living  again  in 
the  memory  of  his  many  kindnesses ; 
forget  the  things  that  depress  in  con- 
centrating on  those  that  exalt.  Fine 
forgetting  is  an  attempt  at — finer  jus- 
tice. It  means  aggressive  living — on 
the  uplands  of  truth  and  light. 

The  man  who  lets  the  really  great 
things  of  life,  love,  honour,  duty,  trust, 
friendship,  loyalty,  justice,  selfishly 
slip  away  from  him  for  the  mere  grati- 
fications of  a  moment  or  a  mood,  has 
no  right  at  first  to  forget.  His  first 
duty  is  to  see  that  he  has  not  been 
keeping  his  conscience  under  the  ether 
of  self-apology.  He  must  realize  the 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

wrong  and  do  all  in  his  power  to  right 
it.  Then  in  his  new  strength  the 
petty  things  will  lose  their  treacherous 
charm.  They  will  fade  into  the  dim 
recesses  of  forgetfulness  where  they  be- 
long, and  the  real  things  will  stand 
out  again  strong,  luminant,  inspiring. 

There  are  moments  when  a  man  re- 
joices that  he  is  living,  that  he  is  yet 
able  to  do  the  right  thing  he  dis- 
dained— to  fill  some  one's  life  with 
roses,  clear  some  one's  path  of  sorrow. 
He  has  the  new  opportunity  of  doing 
a  big  man's  work  in  a  great  simple 
self-forgetful  way. 

He  who  listens  gleefully  to  scandal, 
turns  it  over  meltingly  on  the  tongue 
of  appreciation,  and  then  syndicates  it 
with  supplementary  chapters  of  his  own 
guessing,  repeats  it  until  it  becomes  a 
stained  tattoo  in  memory.  His  ears 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art     129 

should  be  debarred  from  listening  and 
his  mind  taught  to  forget  by  thinking 
deeply  of  the  pain  such  scandal  would 
give  to  him,  were  he  or  some  one  dear 
to  him  the  victim,  innocent  or  guilty. 

He  whose  success  has  made  him  hard, 
selfish,  intolerant,  and  critical,  who  has 
no  patience  with  those  who  have  not 
succeeded,  should  rest  for  a  little  from 
his  work  of  pinning  new  medals  on  the 
chest  of  his  self-approval.  He  should 
forget  his  unworthy  vanity  by  recall- 
ing his  own  hard  struggles  and  the 
part  that  chance,  patronage,  favour,  or 
even  questionable  cleverness,  has  had 
in  incubating  his  prosperity.  He  may 
then  gladly  extend  the  helping  hand 
he  now  withholds. 

We  often  let  an  act  of  the  long  ago 
poison  our  present  living :  we  remem- 
ber when  we  should  forget.  There  are 


1 30     Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

things  done  in  the  inexperience  of 
youth,  in  moments  of  unreason,  acts  of 
many  years  ago,  that  have  left  livid 
scars  in  thought,  that  sting  and  canker, 
that  discourage  and  deaden  purpose,  de- 
press our  moral  vitality,  dim  our  men- 
tal vision,  and  dull  our  energy.  We 
should  let  the  dead  past  bury  its  dead. 
We  should  put  them  forever  out  of  life 
and  thinking.  If  we  have  made  all 
reparation  possible,  let  us  consider 
them  as  the  acts  of  some  one  else — a 
weaker  self  that  is  now  dead,  not  the 
self  that  lives  to-day,  the  one  we  are 
seeking  to  make  finer  and  better.  Let 
us  make  our  new  self  more  than  a 
monument  to  a  dead  past.  Let  it  be  to 
us  a  prophetic  tablet  to  the  greater  self 
we  are  preparing. 

Remember  and  think  of  past  e  folly, 
mistakes,   sin    and  sorrow   only   long 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art     131 

enough  to  repair,  to  atone,  and  to 
avoid.  Then  forget  the  yesterdays  of 
sadness,  shame,  wrong,  and  failure  in 
the  soul's  concentration  on  the  new, 
fresh,  clean  days  for  higher,  truer  liv- 
ing, making  each  new  to-day  but  the 
prelude  to  a  new,  better  to-morrow. 

It  was  this  fine  forgetting  Saint  Paul 
meant  when  he  said,  "  Forgetting  the 
things  which  are  behind,  I  press  for- 
ward to  the  mark  of  my  high  calling." 
Forgetting  of  this  type  is  simply — for- 
giving ourselves  for  past  errors.  We 
forgive  others  for  wrongs  where  there 
is  true  regret,  realization,  and  the 
promise,  direct  or  implied,  of  non-repe- 
tition. If  we  are  honest  in  our  deter- 
mination, if  we  really  have  acquired 
new  wisdom,  why  should  we  not  thus 
forgive — ourselves  ? 

Forgetting  is   the  hardest  lesson  of 


132     Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

life,  and  it  is  never  so  hard  as  with  the 
memories  of  the  emotions.  Our  bit- 
terest moments  of  living  are  when  we 
drape  our  sweetest  memories  in  black 
because  they  belong  to  a  past  that  is 
dead  forever.  There  are  high-lights  of 
remembered  joy  that  overcome  us  with 
maddening  pain,  harder  to  bear  than 
any  actual  sorrow,  past  or  present. 
There  are  memory  cells  that  we  long 
to  identify,  to  individualize  and  to 
isolate  from  the  millions  of  their  fel- 
lows in  the  brain  and  to  kill — as  the 
electric  needle  deadens  the  life  of  an 
individual  hair-cell. 

"  Sorrow's  crown  of  sorrows,"  says 
Tennyson,  "  is  remembering  happier 
things."  Long,  hard  sorrow  is  a 
sickness  of  the  soul,  from  which  in 
time  we  may  gradually  emerge. 
Nature  gently  leads  us  back  to  health 


Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art     133 

in  our  days  of  emotional  convalescence 
by  helping  us  to  forget  and  by  giving 
us  new  memories  to  remember.  Mem- 
ory is  a  mental  force  we  cannot  kill ; 
but  we  can  direct,  we  can  give  it  new 
subjects  to  act  upon,  new  right  engines 
of  purpose  to  move,  new  channels  into 
which  to  run. 

There  are  sometimes  petty  fractures 
of  our  pride,  irritating  incidents  that 
hurt  perhaps  because  we  are  nervous. 
They  loom  large  before  us.  For  the 
time  each  seems  as  big  as  a  real  sorrow 
or  loss.  If  we  cannot  master  it  may 
be  as  well  to  surrender  to  it  just  for  a 
little,  to  think  it  out,  to  talk  it  out,  to 
get  it  out  as  much  as  possible  from  the 
emotional  system.  Then  we  should 
cease  to  think  and  to  talk  ;  we  should 
learn  to  forget,  avoiding  situations  and 
conditions  that  revive  the  pain,  seeking 


134     Forgetting  as  a  Fine  Art 

right  work  and  association  that  lead 
from  it.  Then  even  a  great  cankering 
sorrow  will  be  conquered.  If  found 
unworthy  we  shall  find  it  silenced  for- 
ever in  our  hearts  and — dead  in  our 
memory. 

Let  us  seek  to  begin  each  new  day 
in  the  consciousness  of  our  crown  of  in- 
dividuality as  serene  and  calm  as 
though  it  was  a  new  life,  with  nothing 
of  the  old  remaining  but  its  wisdom, 
its  sweet  memories,  its  duties,  its  re- 
sponsibilities, and  the  hope,  joys,  privi- 
leges, love,  and  possessions  the  old  life 
has  bequeathed  to  us. 


XI 

The  Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

APPINESS  does  not 
come  from  folding  our 
hands  serenely,  filling 
our  hearts  with  the 
minor  music  of  resigna- 
tion, and  gazing  heavenward  as  though 
posing  for  a  spiritual  photograph. 
Happiness  is  activity,  not  torpor  ;  do- 
ing, not  dreaming  ;  finding  oneself,  not 
losing  oneself;  illumination,  not  illu- 
sion ;  reality,  not  imagination.  Hap- 
piness does  not  fool  itself  by  believing 
that  whatever  is  is  best ;  it  seeks  con- 
stantly to  find  whatever  is  best  in  what 
is  and — tries  to  make  it  better. 

Making    ourselves    believe    we  are 
135 


136     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

happy  by  thinking  that  we  are,  is  a 
poor  brand  of  self-hypnotism.  It  does 
not  bring  happiness,  any  more  than 
imagining  we  are  dining  sets  before  us 
a  table  with  a  real,  eatable  dinner  of  nine 
courses.  Constantly  declaring  loudly 
we  are  happy  when,  in  the  deep  indigo  of 
a  mood,  we  feel  that  happiness  is  for 
us  forever  as  extinct  as  the  dodo,  is  not 
brave  ;  it  is  dishonest.  It  is  playing  a 
confidence  game  on  the  credulity  of 
our  friends.  It  is  false  optimism — the 
voice  of  the  pessimist  lying  about  his 
troubles.  True  happiness  does  not 
brag — it  radiates. 

If  the  trials  and  sorrows  of  life  de- 
press, one  should  not  deny  but  realize 
them  and  then  instantly  seek  to 
change  conditions,  as  the  engineer  stops 
his  train  at  a  danger  signal  and  aids  in 
removing  the  obstacle  on  the  track.  If 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     137 

our  sorrows  be  real,  we  should  then 
bear  them  as  bravely  as  we  can  by  con- 
centrating the  thought  on  brighter 
things.  We  often  accentuate  our  pains 
by  hot  poultices  of  self-sympathy  that 
we  constantly  apply  to  our  wounds. 
We  do  not  let  Nature  gently  heal  them ; 
we  do  not  seek  to  forget  ours  in  help- 
ing others  to  forget  theirs.  Delusion 
never  gives  reality.  Reality  comes  only 
from  truth — right  thinking  followed 
by  right  living. 

The  Infinite  gives  to  no  man  happi- 
ness ;  but  only  the  raw  material  from 
which  it  can  be  made.  He  provides 
iron  ore  but  never  plowshares,  clay  but 
not  bricks,  wheat  but  not  loaves.  The 
material  from  which  one  man  forms 
only  an  abode  of  misery,  another  trans- 
forms into  a  temple  of  joy.  Happiness 
is  a  manufactured  article  ;  it  cannot  be 


138     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

bought  or  sold,  it  must  be  home-made 
— by  the  individual  himself.  The 
only  man  for  whom  a  ready-made 
Paradise  was  provided  was  Adam — 
and  he  spoiled  it  all  and  was  evicted. 
All  the  other  people  have  had  to  make 
their  own  paradises  or  go  without. 

Life  is  not  a  summer  holiday,  or  a 
personally  conducted  tour  through  joy- 
land,  or  a  dream  we  must  accept  just 
as  it  comes — it  is  a  struggle,  a  battle. 
We  must  do  our  part ;  we  must  fight, 
— fight,  too,  with  no  war  maps  of  the 
full  campaign  spread  out  before  us  for 
our  consultation  and  inspiration.  We 
must  fight  the  enemy  that  is  nearest, 
vanquish  the  duty  that  stands  in  our 
way,  help  the  faint  and  fallen,  win 
every  point  of  higher,  better,  clearer 
vision,  be  ready  for  whatever  comes — 
with  a  true  soldier's  defiance  of  the 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     139 

odds  against  him.  Whatever  is  worth 
while  is  worth  the  fight  to  attain  it. 
If  you  want  happiness,  fight  for  it  like 
a  man.  Fight  to  be  worthy  of  it,  fight 
to  win  it,  fight  to  keep  it,  fight  to  share 
it,  fight  to  help  others  get  theirs. 

Fighting  for  happiness  is  paradoxic. 
We  must  battle  for  something  higher 
than  happiness  or  we  will  not  win  it. 
He  who  aims  at  it  directly  always  misses 
it.  He  gets  a  poor,  weak,  adulterated 
brand  of  selfishness  that  proves  that 
his  satisfaction,  pleasure  or  joy  is  only 
a  flavoured  cheap  substitute.  Nature's 
pure  food  brand,  the  real  article,  never 
has  a  bad  after-taste,  it  never  palls.  He 
who  is  living  on  the  higher  levels,  bat- 
tling bravely  to  be  at  his  best,  placing 
happiness  secondary  to  love,  right, 
honour,  ideals,  truth,  unselfishness  and 
justice  is  the  one  to  whom  it  comes. 


140    Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

Happiness  is  the  moral  Victoria  Cross 
of  life.  It  is  an  extra  award  given  for 
kingship  over  self,  a  fine  victory  on 
the  battle-field  of  self,  "  for  valour," 
for  the  good  of  others. 

More  than  fifty  years  ago  England 
established  the  Victoria  Cross — that 
simple  Maltese  cross  of  bronze  with 
a  decoration  and  the  words  "  For 
Valour,"  the  whole  suspended  from  a 
ribbon.  It  was  given  to  soldiers,  sail- 
ors, and  to  all  others  who  proved 
worthy  by  special  acts  of  unselfish 
bravery  in  imperative  need. 

Of  the  thousands  awarded  this  most 
highly-prized  honour  few,  if  any,  ever 
thought  of  it  for  an  instant  at  the 
very  hour — they  proved  supremely 
worthy  of  it.  Thrilled  with  sublime 
courage  in  the  heat  of  battle  they  over- 
rode mere  duty  by  a  higher  inspira- 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     141 

tion.  Love  for  humanity  made  some 
rise  to  supreme  heights  of  daring  to 
save  the  lives  of  others.  Some  stood, 
brave  and  undaunted,  fearless,  almost 
blind  to  every  danger  in  the  hour  of 
supreme  need  of  a  nation,  an  army  or 
an  individual. 

Forgetting  self,  forgetting  the  fearful 
hazard,  forgetting  the  spellbound  spec- 
tators, forgetting  all  but  the  imperative 
call  for  instant  action,  their  plan  was 
hardly  conceived  before  its  accomplish- 
ment was  begun.  They  responded  to 
some  divine  impulse  that  so  filled  the 
human  that  it  left  no  room  for  thought 
of  the  Cross.  They  forgot  it  but  they 
proved  worthy  of  it — and  later  it  was 
pinned  on  their  breast.  Let  Happiness 
be  our  Victoria  Cross — given  because 
of  our  proving  worthy. 

The  battle-field  in  our  fight  for  hap- 


142     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 


pi  ness  is  not  the  world  but — self. 
Mere  attainment  of  wealth,  fame,  suc- 
cess, position,  power,  or  possession  does 
not  necessarily  bring — happiness.  The 
history  of  the  ages  proves  this.  Hap- 
piness comes  ever  from  within.  It  is 
the  atmosphere  of  an  inner  calm  and 
peace.  We  must  battle  not  for  hap- 
piness directly  but — against  the  ele- 
ments within  us  that  keep  happiness 
from  us  and  valiantly  on  the  side  of 
those  that  will  help  us  win  it.  There 
are  traits  within  us  that  often  poison 
the  cup  of  happiness  when  it  is  safe 
within  our  hand, — jealousy,  malice, 
stubbornness,  envy,  pride,  selfishness, 
idleness,  fear,  worry,  suspicion,  and  a 
host  of  others.  Let  us  realize  the  ele- 
ments that  keep  us  from  happiness, 
keep  the  need  of  mastering  them  before 
us,  and  we  start  bravely  on  the  road. 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     143 

Worry  is  a  common  enemy  to  hap- 
piness. It  is  restless  surrender  to 
vague  fears,  not  meeting  them  singly, 
but  multiplying  them.  It  is  the  in- 
sistent, irritating  iteration  of  one  dis- 
turbing thought.  Have  you  ever 
struck  repeatedly  one  key  of  a  type- 
writer when  the  ribbon  does  not  move 
and  then  found  it  worn  through  in  a 
few  moments?  There  is  no  progress, 
no  writing  produced,  no  result  but  use- 
less wear.  This  is  how  worry  acts  on 
the  mind  ;  it  eats  through  energy,  pur- 
pose, vitality,  and  produces — nothing. 
It  is  not  the  sunshine  of  clear  think- 
ing focused  on  a  problem  ;  it  is  a  dull, 
distorting,  blurring  mental  fog  that 
creates  phantoms  where  none  exist. 
It  is  not  easy  to  control ;  but  it 
can  be  conquered,  and  it  must  be  or 
it  will  darken  the  whole  life  of  the 


144     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

individual.  Taking  shorter  views  of 
our  daily  living  helps  greatly. 

Living  from  day  to  day,  making  each 
day  a  complete  life  in  itself,  doing  each 
day  our  best,  and  in  the  realization  we 
have  done  our  best  facing  results 
bravely, — this  is  the  magic  formula 
that  somehow  we  must  learn  to  trans- 
form into  real  living.  Worry  has  a 
corner  on  most  of  the — unhappiness  in 
this  life  of  ours. 

We  must  fight  against  selfishness  if 
we  would  win — happiness.  All  the 
sins,  weaknesses,  and  follies  of  human 
nature  are  simply  selfishness  appear- 
ing and  reappearing  under  a  hundred 
disguises  or  changes  of  garb.  Selfish- 
ness is  treacherous  because  it  produces 
a  temporary  counterfeit  of  happiness 
that  cheats  the  individual.  It  gives 
a  semblance  while  destroying  the 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     145 

reality.  It  puts  him  out  of  touch 
with  humanity,  kills  his  genuine  in- 
terest in  others,  isolates  him,  in- 
tensifies his  demands  while  diminish- 
ing his  real  resources,  destroys  his  true 
perspective  of  life,  builds  up  a  false 
self-sufficiency,  a  self-finality.  Noth- 
ing that  lives  in  nature  lives  for  itself 
alone.  The  plant  that  absorbs  what  is 
to  it  life-food,  carbonic  acid  from  the 
air,  must  exhale  oxygen  or  it  will  die. 
Giving  is  as  vital  as  getting.  Fighting 
for  happiness  means  getting  it  in  order 
that  we  may  give  it,  and  by  giving  it 
we  get  it  again  in  new  form. 

Nothing  outside  man  can  make  him 
really — happy.  It  must  in  some  way 
enter  into  the  very  fibers  and  substance 
of  our  lives  and  thought  and  needs. 
Happiness  ultimately  means  self-con- 
quest, self-harmony.  It  is  the  higher 


146     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

self  ruling  in  peace  over  a  conquered 
lower  self,  as  a  victorious  general  wisely 
rules  a  city  he  has  taken.  Happiness 
must  not  be  confused  with  content, 
satisfaction,  comfort,  pleasure,  and  joy. 
These  are  but  sparks,  while  happiness 
is  the  electric  atmosphere  of  the  heart, 
— living,  pulsing,  glowing.  It  is  the 
gladness  of  the  soul  that  inspires  and 
strengthens  the  individual  to  face  con- 
ditions he  cannot  change. 

Happiness  does  not  mean  living  un- 
der skies  of  perpetual  sunshine,  where 
pain,  sorrow,  sickness,  longing,  trial, 
failure,  and  poverty  are  forever  ban- 
ished. They  can  never  be  banished 
from  the  world.  But  the  positive, 
brave,  aggressive  spirit  that  .inspires 
us  in  the  fight  for  true  happiness 
is  greater,  deeper,  stronger,  and  higher 
than  these.  It  dominates  them  when 


Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness     147 

they  come,  as  a  sturdy  swimmer  over- 
comes the  threatening  surge.  It  re- 
duces the  frictions  of  life,  transforms 
their  bitterness  into  sweetness,  their 
pangs  into  power. 

The  great  invaders  of  human  happi- 
ness are  not  the  great  trials  and  sor- 
rows, but  the  treason  of  petty  day-by- 
day  unnecessary  worries,  wrongs,  and 
injustices  manufactured  by  ourselves 
or  donated  to  us  by  those  around  us. 
Fighting  for  happiness  lessens  these  in 
number  and  in  force.  Love  gives  us 
that  quick  instinct  for  finer  vision  in 
seeing  wondrous  possibilities  for  hap- 
piness for  ourselves  and  others  that  no 
mere  reason  of  the  mind  could  dis- 
cover. Love  is  the  instinct  of  the 
heart.  Purpose,  a  concentrated,  conse- 
crated object  in  living,  helps  to  hap- 
piness for  ourselves  and  for  others. 


148     Victoria  Cross  of  Happiness 

There  is  only  one  minute  a  day, 
when  the  sun  is  at  its  zenith,  that  it 
casts  no  shadow.  At  every  other  mo- 
ment the  stronger  the  sunlight  the 
deeper  the  shadow.  There  are  rare 
fleeting  moments  when  the  sun  of  our 
happiness  is  at  its  highest ;  then  there 
are  no  shadows.  Let  us  see  the  sun- 
light in  our  life  so  strong  and  with  so 
concentrated  a  determination  that  the 
shadows  will  hardly  trouble  us.  Let 
us  not  put  off  the  expectation  of  hap- 
piness to  be  realized  in  some  great 
future,  but  find  it  from  day  to  day  in 
the  trifles  of  life — as  the  children  of 
Israel  gathered,  fresh  every  day,  the 
manna  that  fed  them. 


XII 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability 


ESPECTABILITY  wears 
white  robes  of  superi- 
ority and  is  vain  of  her 
virtues.  Respectability 
keeps  within  the  pale  of 
human  and  social  law  though  breaking 
the  laws  of — the  finer  code  of  the  soul. 
With  Pharisaic  self-complacency  she 
withdraws  her  dainty  skirts  from  con- 
tact with  crime.  She  sits  serene  and 
self-appointed  in  the  seat  of  judgment 
and  deals  out  hard  condemnation  on 
the  offenders  of  human  law — the 
criminals,  the  outcasts  of  society.  Let 
respectability  listen  for  a  moment  to 

the  charges  to  be  brought  against  her 
149 


150    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 

and  then  quietly,  squarely  and  honestly 
face  the  issue  and  see  its  justice. 

We  must  realize  as  an  absolute  fact 
that  all  the  crimes  of  criminals  in  any 
city  or  state,  massed  together  and  awful 
as  they  may  be,  cause  but  a  very  small 
part  of  the  suffering  of  life  and  affect 
but  a  small  fraction  of  the  people  com- 
pared with — the  crimes  of  respect- 
ability. Let  us  realize  that  it  is  from 
the  regular  army  of  respectability  that 
life's  greatest  sorrow  comes — not  from 
the  scattered  skirmishers  of  crime.  If 
we  honestly  accept  and  believe  this 
truth,  we  have  a  new  illumination,  a 
high  impulse,  and  a  noble  inspiration 
towards  higher,  simpler  living. 

Were  we  to  question  a  thousand  or  a 
million  men  we  would  find  that  but  a 
small  percentage  have  ever  had  their 
lives  darkened  by  deeds  of  crime,  in 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    151 

fact,  by  any  acts  punishable  by  human 
law.  But  from  the  cruel,  unnecessary, 
unpunishable  weakness  and  injustice 
of  every-day  life — none  is  ever  long 
immune.  The  crimes  of  respectability 
are  gossip,  jealousy,  envy,  bitter  words, 
hypocrisy,  scandal,  malice,  persistent 
meannesses  and  injustice,  lying,  temper, 
hard,  uncharitable  judgment,  selfish- 
ness, spite,  ingratitude,  treachery,  and 
— a  host  of  others. 

Gossip  is  one  of  the  popular  crimes 
that  has  caused  infinitely  more  sorrow 
in  life  than — murder.  It  is  drunken- 
ness of  the  tongue  ;  it  is  assassination  of 
reputations.  It  runs  the  cowardly 
gamut  from  mere  ignorant,  impertinent 
intrusion  into  the  lives  of  others  to 
malicious  slander.  If  facts  do  not 
exist  it  creates  them.  If  the  facts  be 
innocent  it  somehow  juggles  them  into 


152    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 

evidence  of  black  guilt.  In  interpreta- 
tion it  always  chooses  the  worse  of  two 
possible  motives.  It  constitutes  itself 
a  secret  court  of  inquisition  that 
decides  on  the  fate  of  the  victim  in  his 
absence — when  he  has  no  chance  to 
speak  in  his  own  behalf.  It  is  a  con- 
spiracy of  wrong. 

He  who  listens  to  this  crime  of  re- 
spectability without  protest  is  as  evil  as 
he  who  speaks.  One  strong,  manly 
voice  of  protest,  of  appeal  to  justice,  of 
calling  halt  in  the  name  of  charity — 
could  fumigate  a  room  from  gossip  as  a 
clear,  sharp  winter  wind  kills  a  pesti- 
lence. Sometimes  gossip  does  not  deal 
altogether  in  words ;  there  are  simple 
yet  subtle  tricks  of  silence  and  gesture 
— and  in  a  moment  the  deed  is  accom- 
plished. It  seems  like  a  whiff  from 
one  of  those  diabolically  poisoned  roses 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    153 

of  the  Borgias  that  kill  and  leave  no 
sign.  Then  a  reputation  lies  dead  in 
the  roadway.  Some  one's  mighty  faith 
in  some  one  has  its  pulse  stilled  for- 
ever. Some  one  is  walking  his  weary 
way  alone  in  the  silence  with  the  sun 
of  love  blotted  from  his  sky. 

There  is  satanic  ingenuity  in  quot- 
ing part  of  a  sentence  and  without  tell- 
ing why  or  how  it  was  spoken.  It 
puts  a  man  of  honour  in  a  position 
where  he  cannot  explain  because  he 
knows  not  the  treason.  This  seems 
the  master-stroke  of  gossip.  It  may 
kill  a  great  love  in  an  instant  and 
leave  no  chance  for  explanation  that 
might  drive  out  the  poison  of  a  lack 
of  faith — unjustified  were  the  truth 
known.  The  happiness  of  two  may  be 
killed  by — this  lying  silence. 

Jealousy  has  a  hundred  masquerades 


154    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 

in  which  to  do  its  deadly  work.  In 
countless  business  enterprises  alone  it 
transforms  the  joy  of  honest  faithful 
service  into  a  grim  inferno  of  hopeless 
struggle.  Inferiority,  incompetency, 
or  selfish,  impotent  ambition  is  seeking 
to  undermine  the  best  efforts  of  others. 
By  tale  bearing,  petty  intrigue, trickery, 
imposition  and  all  those  other  small 
implements  of  warfare  that  make  up 
the  armoury  of  small  minds  they  seek 
to  harm  others.  The  venom  of  jealousy, 
self-distilled,  poisons  not  only  others 
but  their  own  whole  natures.  They 
envy  but  do  not  emulate.  If  the  con- 
stant energy  expended  in  injuring 
others  were  concentrated  in  heroic  ef- 
forts to  better  themselves  the  results 
would  be  vastly  different  for — them- 
selves and  the  world. 
There  are  men  who  wear  the  white 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    155 

badge  of  respectability  as  jauntily  as 
though  it  were  a  fresh  white  pink  in 
their  buttonhole.  They  like  the  favour 
of  the  community  as  expressed  to  them 
by  smiles,  cheery  words,  and  pleasant 
greetings  on  the  morning  walk  to  the 
station.  They  may  show  a  different 
side  to  their  families.  They  may  have 
irritability,  impatience  and  a  waspish, 
mean  temper  that  upsets  a  household 
day  after  day.  They  leave  a  long  trail 
of  bitter  memories  and  of  rankling  in- 
justice, that  runs  from  the  breakfast 
table  to  even-tide.  They  vent  their 
temper  on  their  family  and  on  inferior 
employees  who  cannot  resent  it — never 
on  a  business  customer  or  associate. 
Prudence,  policy  and  politeness  forbid. 
They  are  thoroughly  conscious  of  the 
limit — they  rarely  play  it. 

When  the  master  returns  the  mem- 


156    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 


bers  of  the  family  look  up  question- 
ingly  to  size  up  his  mood  as  a  farmer 
surveys  the  clouds  to  determine  what 
the  weather  will  be.  The  sorrow  caused 
by  professionals  who  steal  tangible 
things  is  microscopic  in  comparison 
with  the  misery  caused  by  respectable 
amateurs  who  rob  their  homes  and 
offices  of  happiness — by  temper  alone. 

There  are  women  in  some  communi- 
ties with  reputations  that  are  spotless, 
— as  the  world's  standard  goes.  Their 
uniform  of  respectability  seems  always 
fresh  from  the  laundry.  Those  who 
know  them  best  know  they  are  narrow 
and  bigoted,  hard  and  uncharitable  in 
their  judgments,  unforgiving,  selfish 
and  bitter.  Their  very  influence  is 
blighting  ;  they  are  daily  transforming 
some  one's  Eden  into  a  desert.  They 
shrivel  generous  impulses  of  those 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    157 

around  them.  They  pass  through  life, 
self-mesmerized  by  their  selfishness,  in 
sublime  unconsciousness  that  they  are 
doing  more  real  harm  in  the  world 
than  some  whose  acts  they  regard  with 
profound  horror.  Real  human  love 
seems  as  dead  in  their  hearts,  as  desti- 
tute of  the  slightest  light  or  warmth 
or  glow  as  the  centuries-old  ashes  of 
Pompeii.  These  women  are  not  neces- 
sarily hypocritic.  They  are  only  tak- 
ing a  Rip  Van  Winkle  sleep  of  selfish 
self-satisfaction.  No  one  seems  to  have 
the  courage  to  waken  them — with  a 
strong  dose  of  straight  talk. 

The  daily  evils  that  make  life  hard 
are  not  the  great  sorrows  from  which 
under  the  healing  touch  of  time  we 
may  rise  sweetened,  softened,  strength- 
ened, facing  life  bravely  anew.  They 
are  the  infinity  of  irritating  trifles,  the 


158    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 

cruelly  unnecessary  injustice,  the  abso- 
lutely man-made  wrongs  of  life.  It  is 
irreverent  to  refer  to  them  as  any  part 
of  the  divine  plan.  These  wrongs  are 
as  much  man-made  as — a  pair  of  shoes 
or  a  watch  or  an  automobile. 

There  is  selfishness  that  overrides 
the  rights  of  others  like  a  car  of  Jug- 
gernaut. There  is  a  bitterness  of  un- 
forgiving condemnation  that  listens  to 
no  reasons,  explanations,  or  motives, 
that  believes  because  it  has  seen,  that 
credits  the  senses  and  accepts  circum- 
stantial evidence  as  final.  There  is 
avarice  that  starves  what  it  should 
feed.  There  is  ingratitude  that,  turn- 
ing traitor  to  the  kindness  it  has  re- 
ceived, dries  for  years  some  generous 
fountain  of  giving.  There  is  hypoc- 
risy that,  masquerading  like  the  devil 
in  a  surplice,  poisons  love  and  friend- 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    159 

ship  and  leaves  scars  in  memory  and 
sears  and  warps  character.  These  are 
a  few  of  the  crimes  of  respectability. 

A  large  part  of  the  evils  in  life  is 
preventible  ;  some  by  the  individual — 
alone.  Why  do  we  not  prevent  them  ? 
Man  longs  to  learn  the  secrets  of  the 
Infinite  in  this  universe  of  His,  as 
though  it  would  change  man's  whole 
life.  If  man  be  not  true  to  what  he 
knows,  he  is  not  ready  to  know  more. 
With  many  people  it  is  like  a  child 
who,  not  yet  having  mastered  his 
primer,  is  hungry  for  Shakespeare. 

Man  is  said  to  have  been  made  in  the 
image  of  his — Creator.  Some  men  seem 
to  be  trying — to  remove  the  labels  and 
other  identifying  brands.  If  we  are 
men,  with  the  dignity  of  our  powers 
and  privileges  and  possibilities,  let  us 
just — live  like  men.  Life  is  not  some- 


160    The  Crimes  of  Respectability 

thing  to  be  lived  through,  it  is  to  be 
lived  up  to— in  all  its  highest  mean- 
ings and  messages.  There  was  in  the 
army  of  Alexander  the  Great  a  soldier, 
who,  although  he  bore  the  very  name 
of  the  great  conqueror,  was  in  his  heart 
a  coward.  Cowardice  in  any  soldier  of 
that  mighty  army  was  the  worst  of  all 
crimes ;  yet  for  this  man  to  be  a  coward 
was  shame  unspeakable.  And  Alex- 
ander in  great  anger  commanded  the 
craven  :  "  Either  give  up  my  name  or 
follow  my  example."  Living  up  to 
our  privileges  means  living  up  to  our 
name — anything  less  means  failure. 

If  for  a  single  week  in  any  city  each 
individual  were  to  say  each  morning : 
"  To-day  no  one  in  the  world  shall 
have  even  one  second  darkened  by  any 
act  of  mine,"  and  live  it — that  city 
would  be  transformed  and  glorified. 


The  Crimes  of  Respectability    1 6 1 

It  would,  after  all,  mean  only  negative 
goodness.  It  would  mean  only  the 
avoidance  of  evil,  not  real,  aggressive, 
positive,  high-keyed  living  at  our  best, 
but  the  burden  of  life  would  be  lifted, 
the  heavens  would  almost  open  and  be 
visible.  Then  in  an  atmosphere  warm 
with  the  radiant  glow  of  love  and 
brotherhood  we  eould  almost  hear  the 
faint  rustle  of  the  angels'  wings — the 
angels  of  peace  ushering  in  the  mil- 
lennium on  this  world  of  ours. 


XIII 


The  Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

PTIMISM  is  the  sun- 
shine of  the  soul  radi- 
ated in  action.  It  is 
true  religion  as  a  living, 
compelling  fact — not  a 
mere  theory.  It  is  sturdy  confidence 
that  right  must  triumph — united  to 
tireless  courage  to  make  it  triumph. 
Optimism  is  the  finest  weapon  in  the 
armoury  of  the  individual.  It  uni- 
fies all  the  aggressive  undaunted  vir- 
tues of  his  strength  into  a  force  and  an 
inspiration.  It  means  fighting  for,  or 
with,  the  battalions  of  right,  love,  jus- 
tice and  truth — with  determination  to 

win.      True    optimism    is    som 
162 


tion  to 
iething      « 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     163 

more  than  a  continuous  performance  of 
hope.  It  is  the  joy  of  living — made  an 
actual  fact.  It  means  seeking  the  best, 
living  the  best,  doing  the  best.  It 
means  focusing  all  that  is  highest  in 
our  character  to  meet  conditions. 

Merely  thinking,  hoping  and  trust- 
ing that  somehow,  somewhere,  some- 
when,  things  will  come  out  right  while 
we  do  nothing  to  make  them  come  out 
right  is  sunstruck  folly — not  optimism. 
It  is  a  hammock  philosophy  for  a  sul- 
try day  when  you  are  too  drowsy  to 
think  and  really  do  not  care  what 
whimsey  of  non-thinking  plays  games 
in  your  mind.  No  farmer  outside  of  the 
pages  of  "  The  Arabian  Nights  "  would 
expect  nature  alone  to  seed  and  fertilize 
and  plow  his  fields  and  then  to  harvest 
his  crops  and  put  them  in  his  barns 
without  any  human  help  whatever  but 


164    Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

his  thinking.  The  exaggerated  belief 
in  the  superhuman  effect  of  thought  as 
a  direct  power,  is — the  folly  of  many. 

This  truly  comfortable  restfulness  is 
merely  a  perfumed  hot-air  sentimental- 
ity. It  dulls  moral  energy  and  dead- 
ens purpose.  It  is  opiatism — not  op- 
timism. It  is  only  mental  or  moral 
laziness  wearing  a  rainbow  robe  of 
beautiful  confidence.  It  may  give  a 
temporary  fictitious  strength  to  charac- 
ter but  is  ever  revealed  as  weakness — in 
a  crisis.  It  is  only  a  papier-mache" 
shield — punctured  in  the  first  battle 
with  the  stern  realities  of  life. 

There  is  a  light,  jaunty,  bubbling, 
care-free  humour  that  takes  the  low 
fences  of  petty  worries — neatly,  grace- 
fully. It  smiles  nonchalantly  because 
it  has  never  seen  real  trouble.  This 
light-weight  philosophy  usually  wilts 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     165 

at  the  first  touch  of  real  sorrow,  grief 
and  loss,  like  a  straw  hat  meeting  a  sud- 
den rain-storm.  This  is  a  sort  of  kin- 
dergarten optimism  that  sees  only  the 
sun — untouched  by  clouds.  Real  opti- 
mism knows  the  sun  is  ever  shining 
— despite  the  dark,  heavy  clouds  that 
may  obscure  it.  It  knows  that  dark- 
ness is  ever  the  herald  and  messenger 
of  dawn — the  new  illumination  and  in- 
spiration that  must  come.  True  op- 
timism seeks  to  live  in  the  broad 
sunlight— when  it  can.  It  seeks  to  rest 
serene  and  confident  of  the  outcome 
— when  all  seems  dark. 

Verestchagin,  the  great  Russian 
painter,  had  a  glass  studio  constructed 
at  his  home  near  Paris.  It  revolved  on 
wheels,  moved  by  a  windlass  placed  near 
his  easel,  and  he  was  thus  enabled  to 
paint  all  day  with  the  sunlight  falling 


1 66     Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

— in  one  direction  on  his  models  and 
drapery.  He  who  has  cultivated  op- 
timism to  be  part  of  the  real  equipment 
of  character  thus  turns  constantly  to 
the  light  of  truth,  love  and  kindness 
and  to  the  growing  brightness  of  the 
real  things  of  our  living. 

Cheerfulness  has  done  much  good ; 
it  has  been  stimulating,  kindly  and 
helpful.  It  causes  a  cheery  message. 
It  often  prevents  sorrow,  worry,  deep 
grief  from  becoming  contagious.  This 
cheerfulness  is  sweet  when  natural  ; 
brave,  strong,  and  sturdy  when  as- 
sumed. Cheerfulness  is  a  sort  of  germi- 
cide of  the  emotions ;  it  deadens  their 
power  to  injure  others  and  soothes  the 
individual.  But  cheerfulness  at  its 
very  best  and  highest  is  not — optimism. 
It  has  never  the  full,  free  completeness, 
finality,  depth  of — optimism. 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     167 

Cheerfulness  may  be  a  blossom  of 
which  optimism  is  the  plant.  Cheer- 
fulness may  be  refreshing  rills  of  which 
optimism  is  the  fountain.  Cheerful- 
ness may  be  a  smile  on  the  face ;  op- 
timism is  the  smile  in  the  heart — when 
one  is  fighting  hardest.  Cheerfulness 
may  be  the  gentle,  bubbling  voice  of  a 
hopeful  temperament  or  a  sunny  dispo- 
sition ;  optimism  is  the  clear  convin- 
cing, individual  tone  of  the  finest 
depths  of  our  character. 

Optimism  seeks  to  discover  the  good 
points  in  the  acts  of  those  around  us, 
to  let  their  little  weaknesses  and  fail- 
ings fade  into  nothingness  in  the 
shadow  of  our  charity.  It  seeks  to  em- 
phasize their  best,  to  recognize  it,  to 
appeal  to  it,  to  call  it  forth  and  to  de- 
velop it.  A  smile,  a  word  of  sympathy, 
a  touch  of  human  kindness,  a  hand- 


1 68     Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

clasp  of  fellowship,  an  unexpected  bit 
of  tenderness,  courtesy  or  consideration 
will  accomplish  wonders.  It  is  syndi- 
cating sunlight  and  that  is  what  real 
optimism  is.  It  has  a  cheering  magic 
healthful  power  that  no  amount  of  crit- 
icism or  reproof  could  accomplish  in 
changing  others.  True  optimism  must 
begin  in  the — thought.  It  must  be  real 
and  living  in  word,  act,  and  atmos- 
phere. It  cannot  be  put  on  as  a  veneer 
from  the  outside ;  this  is  a  grand-stand 
play,  not  a  private  performance. 

Optimism  cannot  foresee  the  suffer- 
ing that  may  come  to  us,  but  we  can 
sturdily  determine  the  effect  we  will 
let  it  have  on  us.  Sorrow  comes  in  so 
many  guises  but  we  must  all  "  drink 
our  cup."  The  hardest  of  all  our  cups 
of  sorrow  comes  from  the  hand  that 
should  never  be  the  one  to  force  it  to 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     169 

our  lips,  or  it  is  some  cup  that  gives 
agony  to  us  because  we  cannot  save 
another  from  it.  There  is  the  stirrup- 
cup  of  parting,  when  we  turn  our 
horse's  head  away  from  the  inn  of  our 
hope — never  to  return.  The  quassia 
cup  made  bitter  by  that  from  which  it 
is  cut  and  more  bitter  in  memory. 

The  loving-cup,  when  moistened  by 
unmeaning  lips  and  passed  to  us,  may 
later  seem  to  carry  a  note  of  treachery 
we  may  not  understand  aright — till 
too  late.  There  is  the  cup  of  consola- 
tion that  kindly  hands  gently  press  to 
fevered  lips.  There  is  that  greatest 
cup  of  a  final  supreme  grief  like  that 
given  to  the  great  Optimist  of  Calvary 
that  "  could  not  pass."  These  are  but 
types  of  the  cups  of  life.  We  should 
drink  them — if  drink  we  must — as 
Socrates  bravely  drank  his  poisoned 


170     Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

hemlock,  valiantly  quitting  a  world 
unworthy  his  noble  life  with  them. 

The  man  of  optimism  should  be 
kindest  in  criticizing  others  and  never 
put  the  hand  of  harsh  judgment  on 
the  unhealed  wound  of  another's  sor- 
row. Keenly,  vividly,  personally  con- 
scious of  the  trials,  cares,  sorrow,  hun- 
ger, loneliness  and  suffering  of  life,  he 
knows  how  often  he  failed  and  still 
fought  on  till  at  last  he  found  his  way 
— back  to  the  sunlight.  The  optimist 
believes  courageously  that  there  is  a 
reserve  strength  in  man  that  brings 
sudden  new  inspiration  to  bear  or  to 
conquer,  like  the  unexpected  arrival 
of  new  food  or  troops  in  a  siege. 

The  optimist,  with  new  courage  in 
his  heart,  new  determination  in  his 
mind,  and  rebel  tears  secretly  gleaming 
near  his  eyes,  may  rise  superior  to  all 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     171 

unjust  assaults.  He  may  accept  need- 
less pain  without  cynicism,  may  meet 
betrayal  without  thought  of  revenge, 
may  have  to  battle  face  to  face  with 
cruel  disappointment  without  flinching 
and  yet  be  victorious  in  a  bettered  self 
though  vanquished  in  what  was  dear- 
est— the  hope  and  heaven  of  his  living. 
Optimism  realizes  that  life  is  bigger 
than  any  single  battle.  The  true  soul 
has  no  final  Waterloo  ;  it  has  only  its 
latest  defeat,  with  its  golden  message 
of  why  it  failed  and  how  it  may  win  in 
the  next  conflict.  There  may  be  in  a 
very  defeat  an  unnoted  victory  within 
our  own  life — a  new  revelation  of 
latent  power,  and  a  glow  and  tingle 
of  new  courage.  This  may  come  to  us 
while  the  bugle  notes  of  triumph  of  the 
enemy  still  ring  in  our  ears,  their 
flaunting  shouts  of  victory  yet  telling 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

us  of  the  prize  we  have  lost  and  their 
smiles  of  conquest  hardly  faded  from 
their  eyes  and  lips.  Many  a  seeming 
defeat  may  force  us  to  retreat  to  higher 
grounds,  where  we  may  stand  in 
stronger  array,  reintrenched,  rein- 
spired — to  fight  harder  than  ever. 

With  true  optimism,  we  can  face 
poverty  without  permitting  it  to 
harden  us,  we  can  meet  trial  and  sor- 
row and  remain  calm  and  unworried, 
stand  bravely  when  we  do  not  see  the 
way  to  walk.  We  can  let  the  glow  of 
optimism  so  warm  our  soul  that  we  re- 
main simple,  strong,  sincere,  and  un- 
ruffled despite  any  environment.  We 
thus  may  conquer  adverse  conditions 
by  making  them  powerless  to  harm  us 
— when  we  are  unable  to  change  them. 
Optimism  is  the  armour  of  brave  souls 
who  fight  conditions  and  never  sur- 


Optimism  that  Really  Counts     173 

render  to  domination  by  the  darker 
side  of  life  that  dares  to  daunt  them. 

The  optimism  that  counts  does 
not  let  the  individual — take  whatever 
thoughts  may  come.  It  is  a  power 
that  enables  him  to  a  degree  to  select 
his  own  thoughts,  to  stimulate  and  en- 
courage those  that  add  to  his  strength, 
that  are  wings  to  his  purpose,  that 
thrill  his  energy  with  new  conscious- 
ness of  power.  He  gains  control  over 
those  memories  that  take  the  smile 
from  his  face,  strength  from  his  mind 
and  joy  from  his  heart.  Optimism  in- 
spires a  man  to  reduce  all  depressing 
effects  to  a  minimum,  to  raise  resistance 
to  a  maximum,  to  cut  off  the  friction 
of  worry  and  useless  regret.  They 
magnify  weakness,  minify  strength. 
Optimism  has  no  use  for  them. 

We  never  make  conditions  easier  by 


174     Optimism  that  Really  Counts 

telling  ourselves  how  awful  our  troubles 
are  ;  by  feeding  our  griefs  for  fear  they 
may  die  a  natural  death  ;  by  intensify- 
ing every  element  of  pain.  The  op- 
timism that  is  worth  anything  makes 
one  person  smile  at  troubles  that  would 
put  another  out  of  the  running  alto- 
gether. It  finds  joy  because  it  is 
trained  to  see  the  tiniest  glint  of  it  as  a 
miner's  eyes  are  quick  to  recognize  the 
slightest  speck  of  gold  in  his  pan. 
Optimism  sees  roses  in  life  because  it 
is  looking  for  them  ;  receives  love  be- 
cause it  is  exhaling  it.  It  forgets  its 
sorrows  in  counting  anew  its  blessing. 
It  makes  life  truer,  higher  and  liner 
for  self  by  making  it  sunnier  for  others. 
This  is — the  optimism  that  counts. 


XIV 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose 

URPOSE  gives  a  new 
impulse,  a  new  im- 
petus, a  new  interpre- 
tation to  living.  Pur- 
pose is  the  backbone  of 
a  life  of  courage.  It  shows  that  the 
highest  justification  for  living  is  love 
— in  some  form.  It  may  be  for  a 
cause,  a  country,  an  ideal,  a  family,  or 
an  individual.  Purpose  at  its  best 
means  our  kingship  over  conditions, 
our  mastery  over  self,  our  dedication  to 
something  higher  than  self,  fighting 
for  the  right  and  fighting  it  to  the  end. 
Were  we  able  to  follow  even  a  great 
purpose  from  its  highest  flights  of 
175 


176     Power  of  Individual  Purpose 


effort  we  might  find  its  nest  of  in- 
spiration— in  the  heart  of  some  one  of 
whom  the  world  knew  nothing. 

Purpose  makes  man  his  own  second 
creator  and  by  it  he  can  make  himself 
largely  what  he  will.  He  can  choose 
his  own  realm :  he  can  live  con- 
tentedly in  the  mud  of  low  desires  like 
a  lizard  or  sweep  boldly  high  in  the 
pure,  inspiring,  bracing  air  of  noble 
ideals  like  an  eagle  rightfully  claiming 
the  mountain  tops  as  its  own. 

If  our  aim  be  low,  mean  and  selfish, 
bringing  out  all  that  is  weakness  in 
our  nature,  an  ambition  that  betrays 
its  method  in  the  despicable  things 
employed  to  attain  it,  it  is  unworthy 
of  our  crown  of  individuality. 

Low  purpose  makes  us  experts  in 
petty  sophistries  ;  it  kills  natural  sweet- 
ness and  kindness  ;  it  raises  the  moral 


^pte  m<V    uu 

ffl      Tom< 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose     177 

temperature  to  a  fever  heat  of  "  don't 
care"  and  lowers  the  vitality  of  all 
our  higher  living.  This  is  not  the 
purpose  of  which  we  speak ;  it  is  indi- 
viduality at  a  discount,  not  at  a 
premium — as  we  should  hold  it. 

Purpose  makes  man  a  crusader — for 
something.  He  seems  to  grow  greater 
before  our  eyes  in  his  efforts  to  reach 
and  grasp  the  cross  of  some  ideal — 
though  it  may  seem  to  us  unattainable 
— when  the  inspiration  and  glow  of  the 
struggle  itself  means  more  to  him  than 
even  a  crown  of  victory.  Purpose  is 
conscious,  continuous  concentration  to 
attain  an  end.  Before  it  can  be  great- 
est there  must  be  union  and  unity — 
body,  mind,  heart  and  soul  acting  to- 
gether, as  the  essence  of  many  flowers 
may  be  fused  into  a  single  perfume. 

many  of  us  the  eagles  of  purpose 


178     Power  of  Individual  Purpose 

of  the  world's  exalted  great  ones  may 
be  impossible  to  us  in  our  present  con- 
ditions. We  may  be  bound  by  duties, 
cares,  burdens,  the  daily  problem  of 
mere  living  that  make  great  deeds 
difficult.  But  we  can  all  have  purpose 
and  should  have  it  and  we  should  live 
to  it  at  its  best.  We  must  finally  be 
judged  not  by  attainments  but  by  the 
ideals  and  motives  that  inspired  them. 
There  is  one  purpose  that  no  one  is  too 
humble  to  live  by.  It  is — "  faithful- 
ness in  little  things."  It  may  be  only 
a  new  impetus  of  loyalty,  trustfulness 
and  watchfulness  in  our  daily  duties. 

Employers  find  great  difficulty  in 
getting  this  very  faithfulness  in  little 
things.  Many  of  those  paid  for  serv- 
ice are  only  eye-servants.  They  are 
listless,  lazy,  and  irritably  languid — ex- 
cept when  off  duty.  They  regard  the 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose 


repeated  instructions  as  to  how  certain 
simple  work  should  be  done  with  an 
airy  nonchalance  that  is  indifferent,  im- 
pudent and  impertinent.  They  forget 
every  thing  except  some  trifle  of  personal 
interest ;  this  is  tattooed  into  their  mem- 
ory. They  collapse  under  the  slightest 
strain  of  responsibility  like  an  intoxi- 
cated man  leaning  against  an  imaginary 
post.  They  are  a  bundle  of  excuses — 
where  their  own  failures,  foibles  or 
flaws  are  under  discussion. 

Workers  such  as  these  consider 
merely  getting  a  maximum  pay-envel- 
ope at  a  minimum  expense  of  mental 
or  physical  energy.  They  wonder  why 
some  other  worker  is  retained  or  pro- 
moted while  they  are  sure  they  have 
worked  just  as  long  as  she  has  each 
day.  They  forget  they  have  not 
worked  as  wide  or  as  deep — they  over- 


180     Power  of  Individual  Purpose 


look  these  two  other  dimensions.  It  is 
the  plus  of  purpose  consecrated  to  doing 
daily  one's  best  with  a  constantly  added 
increase  of  ability  that  makes  the  real 
difference.  This  simple  phase  of  pur- 
pose may  change  the  life  of  an  individ- 
ual and  inspire  ever  higher  purpose. 

The  conquest  of  a  weakness  in  char- 
acter, the  acquirement  of  a  new  lan- 
guage, a  concentrated  attempt  to  be  of 
greater  usefulness  to  others  in  some 
way,  to  prove  equal  to  our  possibilities 
as  they  progressively  grow  larger  under 
attainment — these  may  be  but  purpose 
in  a  small  way.  Purpose  unites  the 
separate  days  of  our  living  by  the  thread 
of  continuity — as  scattered  beads  form 
a  necklace  by  the  golden  strand  run- 
ning through  them.  A  mother  may 
make  even  the  care  of  her  home  and 
her  family  a  real  purpose  if  she  puts 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose     181 

into  her  labours  the  best  that  is  in  her, 
ever  realizing  she  has — her  crown  of 
individuality  she  must  never  forget. 

Many  men  in  this  life,  men  of  posi- 
tion, power,  wealth  and  opportunity, 
are — merely  drifting.  They  are  not 
victors  of  their  course  but — victims  of 
the  current.  They  live  but  have  no 
definite  purpose  in  living.  In  easy-go- 
ing, careless,  free  way  they  are  carried 
along  by  the  tides  of  life,  with  no  self- 
consciousness  that  they  are  drifters. 
Some  of  them  do  no  defined  great  evil 
but  no  real  good.  If  they  were  to  do 
some  great  evil  or  fall  before  some  great 
sorrow  or  trial  it  might  be  the  means  of 
startling  them  into  realization,  shock- 
ing them  into  vivid  consciousness  of 
their  lack  of  purpose.  Man  does  not 
drift  into  goodness, — the  chance  port  of 
an  aimless  voyage.  He  must  fight  ever 


for  his  destination,  ready  to  battle,  with 
calmness  and  constant  courage,  against 
fog,  darkness,  adverse  winds,  and 
dangers  that  should  only  inspire  to 
greater  effort. 

There  is  hardly  any  peril  of  the  sea 
more  dreaded  by  mariners  than  a — der- 
elict. It  carries  no  lights  on  bow  or 
stern,  no  passengers,  no  rudder,  no  pilot, 
no  crew.  It  is  bound  nowhere,  carry- 
ing no  cargo,  to  no  port.  Helpless  in 
itself  it  is  a  menace  to  all  others.  Hu- 
man derelicts  are  those  ignored  as  hope- 
less by  others,  but  they  were  first  de- 
serted by  themselves.  Lack  of  definite 
real  purpose  is  the  royal  road  to  drift- 
ing, desertion,  and  derelict. 

In  seeking  material  success  it  may  be 
necessary  to  grasp  a  low  rung  of  the 
ladder  ;  but  on  the  ladder  of  purpose  be- 
gin with  the  highest  rung  your  out- 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose     183 

stretched  hand  can  clasp  and  hold  on 
till  you  reach  the  next.  Purpose  takes 
man  out  of  the  orchestra  of  life  and 
puts  him  on  the  stage  of  real  action. 
It  makes  him  part  of  the  spectacle,  not 
a  mere  spectator.  It  gives  him  a  real 
part  to  play,  one  no  other  could  play, 
in  the  great  drama  of  humanity. 

The  great  thing  in  life  is  not  in  real- 
izing a  purpose,  but  in  fighting  for  it. 
If  we  feel  the  possibilities  of  a  great 
work  looming  large  before  us  and  im- 
pelling us  to  action  it  is  our  duty  to 
consecrate  ourselves  to  it.  Failure  in  a 
great  work  is  nobler  than  success  in  a 
petty  one  that  is  beneath  our  maximum 
of  possibility.  We  have  nothing  to 
do  with  results — they  do  not  belong 
to  us,  anyway.  It  is  our  duty  to  do 
our  best  bravely  and  then  to  rest  in  the 
comfort  of  this  fact  alone.  But  be  our 


1 84     Power  of  Individual  Purpose 


work  great  or  small  let  us  have  real 
purpose  in  life  and  battle  for  it  un- 
daunted to  the  end. 

Purpose  at  its  best  must  be  above  and 
beyond  us  like  the  polar  star  that  guides 
and  inspires  the  compass  of  the  mariner. 
The  world  needs,  more  than  talent, 
genius,  wealth,  or  power,  men  of  simple, 
earnest  purpose,  men  consecrated  to 
daily  living  in  the  inspiring  illumina- 
tion of  an  ideal  ;  men  who  make  each 
day  count  directly  for  something  real, 
who  face  each  day's  sunset  with  new 
harvests  of  good  for  those  around  them 
and  for  the  world. 

Being  good,  merely  good  in  a  pale, 
anemic,  temperamental  way  is  not 
enough.  If  the  world  is  not  daily  bet- 
ter because  we  have  lived,  if  the  little 
circle  of  those  around  is  not  brightened, 
strengthened,  heartened,  helped,  and 


Power  of  Individual  Purpose     185 

some  way  made  happier  by  our  direct 
effort  in  our  conscious  living,  we  are 
not  true  to  purpose  or  possibilities. 
We  cannot  all  be  Lincolns  and  save  a 
nation,  but  we  can  put  the  spirit  of 
Lincoln  into  every  trifle  of  our  living 
— his  simplicity,  courage,  kindness, 
love,  consecration,  justice.  The  greatest 
good  to  the  world  is  not  the  magnificent 
power  of  a  few  great  men  manifesting 
it  on  a  colossal  scale,  but  these  same 
qualities,  in  a  smaller,  humbler  way, 
manifested  in  millions  of  simple,  un- 
known lives  throughout  the  world. 


XV 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity 


IFE  simplifies  wonder- 
fully if  we  stand  on  a 
truer  base  of  interpre- 
tation. We  lose  much 
of  the  real  joy  of  living 
because  of — our  one-sided  view.  We 
accuse  Nature  of  playing  favourites. 
We  imagine  she  is  giving  us  all  the 
hard  benches,  and  to  others,  seem- 
ingly, reserved  seats  of  preferred  posi- 
tions with  an  unnecessary  supply  of 
easy  cushions.  We  may  think  Nature 
strews  the  path  of  one  with  roses  while 
working  overtime  in  collecting  the 
thorns  for  us.  It  seems  she  sends  us 

the  great  real  sorrows  and  hands  our 
186 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    187 

neighbours  across  the  street  only  an 
occasional  bon-bon  trouble  put  up  in  a 
perfumed,  beribboned  box. 

We  forget  we  know  only  part  of 
their  trial  or  sorrow — never  all.  We 
forget  while  we  know  all  our  troubles, 
we  do  not  recognize  all  the  good  we 
might  enjoy  if  we  would — the  un- 
noted things  dear  in  our  lives  that 
should  greatly  lessen  our  pain.  We 
forget  the  equity. 

In  business  the  equity  is  the  net 
value  of  a  house  or  other  property 
over  all  mortgages  or  claims  against  it. 
There  is  an  equity  in  your  favour,  on 
a  bookkeeping  account,  if  what  is 
owed  you  is  more  than  what  you  owe. 

Two  men  may  have  all  their  posses- 
sions in  the  separate  ownership  of  two 
houses.  The  one  who  has  a  three 
thousand  dollar  house  free  from  debt 


1 88    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

may  envy  the  owner  of  the  ten  thou- 
sand house  next  door,  unknowing  it  is 
covered  by  an  eight  thousand  dollar 
mortgage  leaving  this  man's  equity  at 
two  thousand  dollars.  The  owner  of 
the  small  house  is  the  richer  of  the 
two  men.  It  is  the  equity  that  proves 
it.  The  philosophy  of  the  equity 
illuminates  many  of  life's  greatest 
problems.  It  may  soften  the  pain  and 
sweeten  our  living  by  showing  how 
equity  intensifies  our  optimism.  Rec- 
ognition of  the  equity  helps  us  to 
retain  our  crown  of  individuality. 

Under  the  seeming  injustice  of  life 
Nature  is  constantly  seeking — equali- 
zing, balance,  justice.  Nature  keeps 
books  with  the  individual.  Her  jus- 
tice consists  neither  in  the  debit  nor  in 
the  credit  side  of  her  ledger,  but  in  the 
difference, — the  net,  the  balance,  the 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    189 

equity.  What  seems  to  us  injustice  is 
often  really  only  our  concentration  on 
one  side  of  the  account — to  the  ex- 
clusion of  the  other.  We  exaggerate 
our  sorrows  so  that  they  eclipse  our 
joys.  We  are  unjust  to  what  we  have 
in  hungering  for  what  we  have  not ; 
we  make  our  unsatisfied  desires,  not 
our  possessions,  the  test  of  happiness. 

Sometimes,  with  a  sigh  on  our  lips 
and  a  sob  creeping  into  our  throat,  we 
face  our  life  in  numb  rebellion.  We 
are  so  vividly  conscious  of  what  we 
have  to  bear  that  we  may  forget  our 
reason  for  happiness.  Our  sorrows, 
seen  through  the  magnifying  glass  of 
discouragement,  loom  large  before  us. 
Our  joys  through  the  reducing  glass  of 
unsatisfied  desire  minify  into  almost — 
nothingness.  We  permit  what  we  lack 
to  poison  the  waters  of  what  we  have. 


190    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

We  forget  the  equity.  We  forget  the 
big,  clear,  broad  sweep  of  net  happi- 
ness still  remaining  to  us.  The  mort- 
gage of  care,  sorrow,  and  responsibility 
blinds  us  to  our  real  possessions. 

There  are  times  when  some  affliction, 
some  illness  holds  us  in  its  close  deadly 
pressure.  The  pain  seems  beyond  the 
bearing.  It  seems  so  unjust,  so  cruelly 
hard  to  suffer.  It  mars  our  life ;  dis- 
turbs the  simple  sweetness  of  the  best 
in  our  nature ;  keeps  us  ever  slaves 
under  the  awful  spell  of  its  presence  or 
under  the  grim  tyranny  of  fear  of  its 
recurrence.  It  makes  us  sometimes 
bitter  and  unjust  in  our  poor  mislead- 
ing speech.  But  in  our  temporary 
times  of  relief  the  tide  of  courage,  love, 
gentleness,  tenderness  runs  just  as 
strong  as  ever,  just  as  earnest,  in  the 
high  sea  of  our  heart's  desire. 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    191 

If  we  can  remember  the  equity  we 
can  make  slightly  easier  this  bed  of 
pain.  We  may  find  joys  in  thought 
that  lull  the  pang.  We  may  find  our 
place  in  life  a  little  softened  from  the 
struggles  of  the  past,  some  good  fortune 
may  add  to  our  equity ;  the  touch  of 
some  inspiring  friendship  may  hearten 
us  to  new  bravery.  We  may  realize 
that,  because  of  our  very  illness,  in  the 
windings  of  time,  the  craft  of  some  great 
joy  has  sailed  to  us,  along  the  river  of 
sorrow,  and  anchored  in  our  heart. 

We  may  envy  the  fame,  fortune,  or 
prosperity  of  another,  unknowing  the 
mortgages  of  care,  responsibility,  oppo- 
sition, and  worry  that  reduce  the  real- 
ness  of  what  he  has.  We  might  be 
unwilling  to  pay  a  small  percentage  of 
the  price  it  has  cost  him.  His  net  hap- 
piness may  be  really  less  than  ours. 


192    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

A  business  man  may  pass  through 
fearful  times  of  stress  and  storm,  trying 
hard  to  keep  the  flag  of  hope  ever  fly- 
ing, watching  carefully  for  rocks  of 
financial  discredit,  delayed  payments 
and  heroic  effort — to  bring  his  ship  of 
enterprise  safe  into  harbour.  The  em- 
ployees, leaving  at  the  stroke  of  the  bell, 
may  go  home  and  drop  all  thought  of 
business.  They  look  with  envy,  per- 
haps, at  his  easy  position,  thinking  and 
knowing  nothing  of  his  constant  coura- 
geous battle.  They  like  the  property, 
forget  his  mortgages  of  worry  and  re- 
sponsibility and  overlook  the  sympathy 
and  better  work  and  loyalty  they  would 
give  if  they  realized — the  equity. 

They  who  have  no  children  feel  they 
are  the  one  thing  lacking  for  happiness. 
Those  who  have  them  may  concentrate 
on  the  hardship  of  so  many  to  feed  and 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    193 

care  for  and  educate.  One  may  put 
too  much  stress  on  the  loss,  the  other 
too  much  on  the  responsibility.  Both 
may  forget  the  equity. 

One  great  reason  for  much  of  our 
manufactured  sorrow  and  misery  is 
that  we  measure  our  lives  by  what  we 
judge  of  others,  not  by  true  estimate  of 
our  own.  Life  in  its  highest  sense  is 
not  a  competition  with  others  but  with 
ourselves.  Have  you  ever  sat  in  the 
local  train  and  felt  you  were  making 
good  time?  Suddenly  the  express 
whizzes  by,  with  a  rush  and  a  roar,  in 
the  same  direction  on  a  parallel  track. 
As  you  watch  this  train  your  own  seems 
not  only  making  no  progress  whatever 
but  seems  actually  going  rapidly  back 
on  the  track,  nearer  to  its  starting 
point.  When  the  express  disappears 
you  become  conscious  that  your  train 


194    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

has  really  been  cutting  distance  all  the 
time.  Of  course  we  realize  it  is  only  an 
illusion.  In  our  daily  life  we  make 
similar  mistakes  that  vitalize  our  sor- 
rows and  put  happiness  into  a  moaning 
restless  sleep,  with  wet  eyes  at  dawn, 
because  we — forget  the  equity. 

If  we  have  really  much  to  bear,  our 
attitude  is  making  the  bearing  harder. 
It  is  making  our  power  over  conditions 
less,  their  power  over  us  more.  Let  a 
fresh,  clear,  bracing  breeze  of  optimism 
and  new  courage  blow  through  the  soul. 
Let  us  forget  our  sorrows  in  remember- 
ing our  joys ;  lessen  our  pain  in  real- 
ization that  our  imagination  is  increas- 
ing it.  Let  us  remember  the  equity, 
the  great  possibilities,  powers,  and  pos- 
sessions for  good  to  ourselves  and  the 
world — still  left  to  us.  If  even  then  it 
seems  little,  throw  in  great  handfuls 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    195 

of  hope,  purpose,  confidence,  determi- 
nation, courage.  Let  us  make  it  seem 
greater — until  it  really  becomes  greater. 

We  are  inclined  to  regard  all  happi- 
ness, success,  and  sunshine  as  our  due, 
which  we  have  earned  somehow  by 
merely  coming  into  the  world  and  con- 
senting to  live  here,  while — trial,  sorrow 
and  pain  seem  an  unjust  invasion  of  our 
individual  rights.  The  possession  that 
would  be  the  crowning  joy  of  one  might 
be  the  useless  encumbrance  or  the  last 
stroke  of  despair  to  another.  We  forget 
the  equity  in  judging  ourselves  ;  we  for- 
get it  in  judging  others. 

In  our  bookkeeping  in  business  we 
do  not  let  some  one's  debit  of  one  hun- 
dred dollars  wipe  out  his  thousand-dol- 
lar credit ;  we  realize  that  the  man  has 
an  equity  of  nine  hundred  dollars  re- 
maining ;  that  he  has  this  amount  still 


196    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

to  his  credit.     Why  do  we  not  let  such 
justice  apply  to  the  acts  of  others? 

The  friend  who  has  been  kind  and 
generous  to  us  for  years,  who  has  stood 
bravely  by  us  in  hours  of  darkness, 
whose  hand  has  steadied  us  through  a 
crisis,  who  should  have  many  golden 
spots  in  memory  to  his  credit, — may 
prove  weak,  may  offend  us,  may  even 
desert  us.  In  our  hurt  we  may  let  the 
act  of  a  moment  neutralize  the  years  of 
constancy,  truth,  and  loyalty, — one 
debit  cancel  in  an  instant  his  long  ac- 
count of  credits.  We  make  it  harder 
for  him,  harder  for  ourselves,  by  forget- 
ting the  equity,  by  overlooking  the  mar- 
gin still  remaining  to  his  credit.  A  lit- 
tle patience,  a  little  tolerance,  a  little 
generous  waiting  and  watching  before 
pronouncing  final  judgment,  may  do 
wonders  in  this  weary  world. 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    197 

For  years  some  man  in  public  life 
may  have  struggled  by  consecration  to 
purpose,  by  loyalty  to  principle,  by 
faithful  adherence  to  duty,  and  at  last 
— reached  a  pinnacle  of  fame.  The 
world  honours  him  ;  his  life  is  held  up 
as  a  model,  an  inspiration  to  the  young, 
a  source  of  pride  to  all.  But  that  man 
may  do  a  wicked  thing,  and  the  world 
is  startled  by  the  discovery.  Society 
says,  "  Now  he  is  unmasked  ;  now  we 
know  his  real  character  I  "  One  evil 
act  becomes  typical  of  a  whole  life. 
One  evil  act  submerges  all  the  good  of 
years  of  faithful  service. 

Does  society  ever  make  one  good  act 
the  expression  of  a  character  ?  Does  it 
ever  let  one  good  act  sweep  like  a 
mighty  tide  over  a  wicked  life  and  bury 
it  forever  from  sight  and  memory  ? 
That  man's  character  may  not  have 


198    When  We  Forget  the  Equity 

been  hidden.  There  may  have  been  a 
sudden  temptation,  one  that  came  when 
mind  was  weary,  hope  weak,  and  body 
worn,  every  sentinel  against  sin,  for  the 
time,  withdrawn — and  the  victory  was 
an  easy  one.  Under  the  compelling 
power  of  an  act  once  committed,  mor- 
ally dazed,  he  may  have  involved  him- 
self further — doing  what  he  could,  not 
what  he  should.  The  act  was  wrong. 
It  was  a  big  black  mortgage  on  a  life ; 
but  the  equity,  the  justice  of  the  balance 
of  good,  is  his — and  we  wrong  him  by 
forgetting  it. 

Poets,  preachers,  teachers,  delight  to 
say  character  is  a  mighty  structure,  put 
together  block  by  block,  which  may  be 
ruined  in  an  instant,  fall  into  dust  and 
chaos  by  one  evil  deed.  It  is  not  so — 
this  is  cruelly  unjust,  untrue.  Charac- 
ter cannot  be  killed  in  an  instant — it  is 


When  We  Forget  the  Equity    199 

only  reputation  that  can  be  slain  by  one 
act.  Great  single  deeds  do  not  make 
character — large  single  evil  acts  cannot 
ruin  it.  Character  is  built  of  trifles. 
The  real  test  is  the  equity, — the  balance 
of  the  good  over  the  evil. 

It  may  be  the  Infinite  will  finally  so 
judge  us ;  that  He  will  regard  no  single 
black  act  as  being  our  whole  life ;  that 
He  will  judge  us  by  our  equity,  letting 
good  impulses,  high  motives,  faithful- 
ness in  little  things,  true  unselfishness, 
brotherly  love,  kindness,  and  exalted 
ideals,  balance,  offset,  and  neutralize 
many  of  the  acts  of  our  human  weak- 
ness, as  we — in  our  poor  human  recog- 
nition of  justice — permit  a  payment  on 
account  to  cancel  part  of  a  debt. 


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eisifim  Jon  ob  si 
tormao  aJoB 
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XVI     ijsj 
Running  Away  /r^  Life 


O  fight  life's  battles  one 
must  keep  close  to  the 
firing-line.  Pain,  sor- 
row, anxiety  or  trouble 
must  be  fought  at  close 
cannot  be  evaded,  ig- 
We  must  van- 


range.  They 
nored,  nor  deserted, 
quish  them  or  they  will  vanquish  us. 
We  must  look  them  squarely  in  the 
face  and — fight  them  to  a  finish.  Re- 
treat means  simply  deferring  the  battle 
until  we  are  weaker — not  stronger.  It 
is  running  away  from  self — running 
away  from  life.  It  is  as  foolish  as  try- 
ing to  dodge  the  atmosphere. 

Thousands  in  the  world  to-day  are 
200 


Running  Away  from  Life     201 

running  away  from  life  to  escape  some 
mental  or  emotional  pang.  They  are 
seeking  it  by  the  road  of  amusement, 
distraction,  travel  and  change  of  scene. 
They  seek  not  new  wisdom  to  cure  a 
wound  nor  new  strength  to  bear  it,  but 
merely — some  way  to  deaden  the  pain. 
These  are  in  quest  not  of  peace  but  of 
temporary  oblivion  — not  self-conquest 
but  self-forgetfulness.  They  are  taking 
emotional  cocaine,  which,  like  all  pow- 
erful drugs,  has  a  dangerous  reaction. 

The  swiftest  engine  in  the  world 
cannot  carry  us  away  from  a  grief  that 
holds  our  very  heart  in  its  close  deaden- 
ing pressure.  No  matter  how  rapidly 
the  mile-stones  are  whizzed  backward, 
we  cannot  escape  the  pain.  It  is  snug- 
gling close  by  our  side  and  is  eclipsing 
all  the  beauties  of  life  and  nature 
around  us  by  its  dull  insistent  note. 


2O2     Running  Away  from  Life 

The  magic  spell  of  music  may  carry 
us  for  a  little  out  of  ourselves,  may 
temporarily  fill  our  hearts  with  rest, 
calm  and  peace,  may  silence  the  voice 
of  a  forsaken  duty  or  an  uncon- 
quered  pang  of  memory,  but  unless  the 
music  inspires  us  with  the  wine  of  new 
purpose,  the  vital  impelling  courage  to 
act  as  we  should,  it  has  been  only — 
musical  cocaine.  And  as  we  walk  the 
streets  homeward,  the  pain  starts  afresh 
as  if  the  very  respite  had  made  it  want 
to  revenge  itself  for  our  forgetting. 

If  we  could  pack  our  worries  and 
anxieties — those  restless  imps  that  feed 
on  our  happiness  and  starve  our  souls — 
in  storage  before  we  set  out  on  a  travel 
tour,  change  of  scene  might  be  of  real 
value  to  us.  It  might  be  a  physical 
upbuilding,  a  mental  refreshing  and  a 
moral  rebirth.  But  if  our  worries  are 


Running  Away  from  Life     203 

going  to  camp  out  in  our  stateroom  at 
night  and  keep  us  awake  to  listen  to 
what  they  tell  us  and  to  walk  the  deck 
with  us  by  day — they  prove  to  us  that 
running  away  has  been  a  vain  flight 
— not  a  valorous  fight. 

If  they  loom  so  large  before  us  that 
they  shut  out  the  view  of  the  Alps  and 
darken  the  skies  of  sunny  Spain — why, 
we  then  realize  we  have  not  been  fight- 
ing at  all,  but  merely  taking  the  same 
old  play  of  our  sorrows  on  a  European 
tour  where  only  the  scenery  is  changed 
while  the  cast  of  emotions  is  the  same. 

We  constantly  tilt  at  windmills  of 
dis-raction,  leaving  the  real  battle  on 
the  field  of  the  soul — unfought.  Tir- 
ing of  the  friends  who  have  been  near 
to  us  and  whom  we  disqualify  either 
because  they  will  talk  about  our  sorrow 
or  they  will  not,  we  hunt  up  acquaint- 


204     Running  Away  from  Life 

ances  or  semi-friends  of  the  vintage  of 
five  years  ago  and  try  Society.  This  is 
only  another  brand  of  cocaine. 

We  imagine,  self-deceptively,  that  six 
nights  a  week  in  evening  dress  might  of 
itself  banish  our  sorrow  or  stifle  our 
secret  grief.  But  what  ia  the  use  of  it 
all  if,  when  the  evening  clothes  are  re- 
moved, we  find  ourselves  still  in  the 
unremoved  strait-jacket  of  memories 
we  would  give  aught  in  the  world  to 
escape  forever?  The  intensified  pain 
seems  even  greater  as  we  contrast  our 
misery  with  the  happiness  of  others. 
How  do  we  know  that  they,  too,  are  not 
wearing  strait-jackets  ? 

We  become  nervously,  morbidly  over- 
sensitive. An  innocent  chance  word 
may,  in  an  instant,  fan  into  flame  the 
embers  of  an  unconquered  pain.  Some 
simple  ordinary  incident  may  cause  the 


Running  Away  from  Life     205 

river  of  a  sleeping  emotion  to  rise  sud- 
denly and  almost  flood  the  soul.  By 
some  subtle  electric  disturbance  in  the 
brain's  central  office  a  thousand  calls  of 
different  new  impressions  may  succes- 
sively ring  violently  the  bell  of  the  one 
dominating  memory  that  haunts  us. 
Every  road  of  our  thought  leads  inevi- 
tably— to  the  Rome  of  our  grief. 

We  must  just  drop  our  cocaine,  stop 
running  away  from  life,  and  fight  the 
battle,  alone  if  alone  we  must — till  we 
rise,  sanctified,  sweetened  and  strength- 
ened— a  victor  on  the  field  of  seeming 
defeat.  Each  of  us  has  his  own  special 
enemies  that  would  take  from  him  the 
— crown  of  his  individuality. 

These  are  the  times  when  we  must 
stand  still  for  a  little,  get  our  bearings 
through  the  fumes  and  the  smoke  and 
— face  and  fight  the  life  that  is.  Some 


206     Running  Away  from  Life 

say  change  of  scene  does  lull,  does  soothe, 
does  cure.  No,  Nature  may  with  time 
help  us  to  forget  but  it  is  usually  only 
putting  our  grief  or  trial  to  sleep  if — 
unconquered.  We  are  left  too  often 
with  scars  of  morbidness,  dead  ideals, 
awful  regret.  We  are  not  calmed  but 
paralyzed — in  certain  emotions.  We 
are  weakened  ;  we  have  lost  the  possible 
strength  of  a  victory  that  would  make 
all  future  pain  easier  to  bear  because  of 
finer  character,  confidence,  and  courage. 
In  assaying  our  trouble,  let  us  first 
see  if  it  is  really  as  great  as  it  seems. 
We  often  listen  to  trifles  of  worry 
through  a  microphone  of  fear,  where  the 
footfall  of  a  few  flies  is  exaggerated  till 
it  sounds  like  the  battling  hoofs  of  a 
cavalry  charge  across  a  wooden  bridge. 
There  are  petty  cares  that  we  should  be 
ashamed  of  noticing.  Some  of  them  are 


Running  Away  from  Life     207 

no  larger  than  a  dewdrop  that  the  heat 
of  a  few  seconds'  clear  thinking  should 
dissipate  into  nothingness.  These  we 
put  under  the  microscope  of  our  anx- 
iety until  a  microbe  seems  as  big  as 
a  prehistoric  monster.  Treat  these  as 
if  they  were  mere  mosquitoes  of  fate 
trying  to  annoy  the  Sphinx.  Learn  to 
look  these  troubles  squarely  in  the  eye, 
smile  bravely,  be  calm,  and  say  to  them 
— "  You  never  even  touched  me." 

There  is  one  great  sorrow  in  life  that 
carries  with  it  a  sacredness  that  no  irrev- 
erent hand  can  touch  lightly.  It  is 
the  sacrifice  we  have  to  make  on  the 
altar  of  our  love.  Love,  in  some  form, 
is  the  greatest  thing  in  life — the  others 
are  understudies.  The  saddest  hour  is 
the  loss  of  one  we  hold  dear.  It  is  bit- 
terly hard  when  the  loved  one  still  lives 
but  separated  forever  from  us  by  mis- 


2o8     Running  Away  from  Life 

understanding,  injustice,  folly — love 
grown  cold.  There  is  that  other  loss 
when  the  one  most  loved  passes  from 
us  into  the  eternal  silence. 

The  death  of  love  transmutes  every 
high  light  of  past  joys  into  agonies  of 
memory  by  comparison  with  present 
deadness.  The  death  of  the  loved  one, 
with  love  still  strong,  crowns  their  life 
together  and  makes  past  joys  sweet, 
serene  and  soothing  in  the  Holy  of 
Holies  of  memory.  The  first  grad- 
ually eclipses  the  memory  of  joys ; 
the  second  the  memories  of  sorrows — 
while  intensifying  the  sweetness  of  re- 
membered happiness.  In  either  form, 
it  speaks  our  supreme  sorrow,  the  taking 
of  the  last  fortress  of  our  courages »  em 

There  is  one  form  of  distraction  that 
is  not — running  away  from  life.  It  is 
in  seeking  to  be  genuinely  interested 


Running  Away  from  Life     209 

in  the  daily  lives  of  others,  in  growing 
more  unselfish,  in  heartening  others, 
in  standing  strong  by  those  in  need,  in 
distributing  as  an  administrator  to  all 
humanity  the  estate  of  love  that  has 
been  ours — in  deeds  of  cheer,  con- 
stancy, helpfulness,  consolation,  kind- 
ness and  thoughtfulness. 

Let  us  feel,  in  every  sorrow,  that 
there  is  something  within  us,  a  divine 
spirit  that  rises  superior  to  all  else  in 
life,  something  imperishable,  unper- 
turbed, impregnable — something  that 
can  no  more  be  sullied  than  a  ray  of 
sunlight  from  the  heart  of  the  sun. 

Let  us  fight — fight  with  the  certainty 
of  winning  a  greater,  bigger,  finer  self. 
We  cannot  always  evade  the  darker 
side  of  life  but  we  can  dictate  the 
effect  we  will  permit  it  to  have  on  us. 
Let  us  fight  like  Jacob  of  old  wrestling 


210     Running  Away  from  Life 

with  the  angel  and  say,  "  I  will  not  let 
thee  go  unless  thou  bless  me."  And 
the  angel  of  grief  always  does  bless  us 
— if  we  battle  aright.  Somehow,  some- 
where, somewhen,  the  conquered  sor- 
row is  transformed  into  finer  strength, 
broader  sympathy,  tested  friendships, 
gentler  tolerance,  greater  charity,  and 
a  truer  vision  of  the  realities  of  life. 

If  our  sorrow  be  inevitable  we  must 
bear  it  bravely  so  that  we  may  bear  it 
easier.  If  we  can  get  salvage  of  hope 
from  the  wreck  of  failure  we  are  less- 
ening the  loss.  Often  a  sacrifice  of 
petty  pride  will  bring  back  all  the 
old  happiness.  Fight  must  help ; 
flight — never.  Our  environment  is  so 
largely  the  radiation  of  our  individ- 
uality that  we  can  never  truly  desert 
it.  Running  away  from  life  is  merely 
— a  coward's  useless  alibi. 


XVII 


The   Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 

HE  great  test  of  individ- 
ual character  is  not 
struggle  but  attain- 
ment ;  not  failure  but 
success ;  not  adversity 
but  prosperity.  When  Nature  wants 
to  put  a  man  through  the  third  degree, 
she  places  near  him  hia  laurel  wreaths 
of  victory ;  she  megaphones  to  him  the 
world's  plaudits  of  success ;  she  pa- 
rades stacks  of  newspaper  clippings 
and  magazine  articles  with  his  por- 
traits ;  she  clinks  his  money-bags  in 
his  ears,  and  she  tells  him  confiden- 
tially of  the  world-changing  power  of 

his     influence.     She    smiles    on    him 
211 


212    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 

kindly  and  murmurs,  "  Poor  fellow,  is 
he  able  to  stand  it  ?  "  Then  she  sends 
him  for  his  test  through — the  dark 
valley  of  prosperity. 

Few  pass  through  it  immune ;  few 
acquire  no  perversion  of  mind,  few  es- 
cape fractures  of  ideals  or  new  dents  in 
character.  But  when  one,  through  it 
all,  remains  just  as  good  and  simple 
and  lovable  as  when  he  began  the 
trip,  remains  kindly,  sincere,  strong, 
sympathetic,  and  unspoiled,  Nature 
is  glad  indeed  to  admit  she  has  found 
— a  real  man,  a  big  man,  a  great  man. 

It  is  called  the  dark  valley  of  pros- 
perity because  it,  so  often,  dims  the 
vision  to  the  finer  realities  of  life.  In 
the  early  stages,  in  the  dimness,  they 
cannot  see  their  old  friends  as  they 
pass.  There  comes  a  peculiarity  of  the 
extensor  muscles  which  prevents  their 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    213 

extending  the  hand  to  some  one  no 
longer  necessary  to  them.  They  ac- 
quire a  form  of  memory  impairment 
which  prevents  them  remembering 
past  favours  and  debts  of  gratitude  due 
to  those  who  stood  by  them  in  their 
hours  of  need.  They  do  not  notice 
their  sudden  and  increasing  chest  ex- 
pansion. They  find  that  their  hats 
are  continuously  growing  too  small  for 
them  in  a  singular  manner. 

In  the  dark  valley,  their  dearest 
hopes  and  their  high  ideals  often  slip 
away — into  the  silence.  For  them  are 
substituted  avarice  and  ambition, 
dressed  in  a  livery  of  gold,  and  the  in- 
dividual may  near-sightedly  mistake 
them  for  higher  good.  In  the  shad- 
ows, conscience,  the  eye  of  the  soul,  be- 
comes, too  often,  dulled  so  that  it  can- 
not see  the  distinctions  between  genu- 


214    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 

ine  honour  and  a  dishonour  their  law- 
yers inform  them  is  technically  legal. 
They  fail,  often,  in  their  morally  fa- 
ding vision,  to  see  the  difference  be- 
tween right  and  wrong,  between  justice 
and  the  injustice  of  misused  power. 
These  are  but  samples  of  dangers  that 
menace  all,  but  which  some  overcome. 

Sometimes  they  grope  along  the  way, 
unconscious  of  the  great  price  that 
they  are  paying.  Suddenly  they  may 
realize,  under  a  burst  of  temporary 
sunlight  in  the  valley,  that  they  have 
somehow,  somewhere  lost  love,  sympa- 
thy, trust,  confidence,  sweetness  of 
nature  or  something  else  that  has  been 
— dearest  in  the  world  to  them.  It  has 
dropped  away  in  the  darkness  like  a 
locket  from  an  unguarded  chain,  and 
they  may — never  find  it  again. 

It  is  sheer  cant  that  would  throw 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    215 

wealth,  fame,  prosperity  and  success 
into  a  moral  dust-heap  as  vanities  of 
the  world.  We  all  want  them.  Those 
who  take  a  high  moral  pose  against 
them  are  either  envious  or  are  elbow- 
ing their  way  to  get  front  Pharisee 
seats  in  the  temple  of  virtue.  These 
things  are  not  evil  in  themselves. 
They  are  great  powers  for  good  but 
they  are  not — life's  greatest.  They  are 
less  than  the  real  joys,  like  love,  that 
— no  money  can  buy.  Their  wrong  is 
when  acquired  by  a  sacrifice  of  truth, 
honour,  justice  or  the  real  virtues  of  life, 
or  when  they  are  misused  or  conse- 
crated to  the  selfish  side  of  living. 
Their  danger  is  in  the  corrupting  effect 
the  individual  can  hardly  ever  keep 
them  from  having  on  him. 

Poverty,  struggle,  failure  and  adver- 
sity are  not  in  themselves  passports  to 


2 1 6    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 


saintship — though  they  have  given 
moral  strength  and  sweetness  to  thou- 
sands. They  have  their  own  hard,  bit- 
ter temptations  to  meet  face  to  face. 
Theirs  is  far  from  an  easy  fight — the 
daily  hand-to-hand  battle  with  fate. 
But  their  temptations  are  usually  di- 
rect, bold,  clearly  defined  and  their 
joys  require  so  little.  The  tempting 
tests  of  prosperity  come  in  subtle 
phases,  gilded,  perfumed,  masking  in 
deceptive  guise. 

Poverty  knows  the  word  "  stealing  "  ; 
wealth  may  think  it  "  financeering." 
Poverty  knows  "  envy  of  another's 
possessions  "  ;  wealth  may  assume  tak- 
ing a  manufacturing  plant  as  "  a  good 
business  deal."  It  may  then  even,  by 
some  strange  sophistry,  justify  itself 
by  declaring  they  will  do  better  for  the 
people.  Poverty  knows  hunger  for 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    217 

bread ;  wealth  may  hunger  for  the 
money  of  the  bread-earners.  Poverty 
usually  sees  evil  in  its  aggressive,  hard- 
est phases.  Prosperity  may  find  it 
hidden  and  unsuspected  like  Cleopa- 
tra's asp  in  a  bouquet  of  flowers. 
"  For  one  who  can  stand  prosperity," 
says  Carlyle,  "  one  hundred  can  stand 
adversity." 

A  very  slight  drop  of  the  acid  of 
prosperity  will  begin  the  revelation  of 
character  of  the  man — be  he  not  big 
enough  to  be  simple.  The  slightest 
elevation  in  position,  the  least  new 
good  fortune,  some  temporary  elation 
may  reveal  it.  Have  you  ever  no- 
ticed the  man  who  has  made  a  bit  of  a 
success  in  the  city  and  returns  for  a 
week  to  his  native  village?  He  says 
he  has  come  back  to  see  the  folks  but 
it  is  really  to  have  the  folks  see  him. 


2 1 8    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 

He  enjoys  the  envy  he  excites  in  those 
who  have  not,  like  him — lived  in  the 
city.  He  wants  to  get  sunburned  in 
the  warmth  and  fervour  of  their  ad- 
miration. He  stretches  at  length  in 
his  tilted  chair,  locks  his  thumbs  be- 
hind the  armholes  of  his  waistcoat, 
and  plays  a  flute  solo  of  vanity  on  his 
breast-bone,  using  the  buttons  as  stops 
manipulated  by  his  fingers. 

He  occupies  the  centre  of  the  stage 
every  minute  with  his  monologue. 
There  is  a  touch  of  swagger  in  his 
walk,  an  irritating  undertone  of  toler- 
ance and  patronage  in  his  speech,  and 
that  loud  voice  we  involuntarily  use 
with  the  deaf.  He  is  his  own  Boswell 
and  his  own  Gabriel.  It  is,  perhaps, 
only  a  harmless  brand  of  vanity,  but 
it  shows  he  is  getting  near  to  the  en- 
trance of — the  dark  valley.  When  a 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    219 

big,  simple  man  of  real  fame  comes 
back,  the  story  of  what  he  has  done 
— usually  leaks  out  incidentally  ;  it  is 
not  exploded  like  a  bomb. 

The  author  of  a  successful  book  may 
have  won  his  honours  because  he  wrote 
with  serious  purpose.  His  message  was 
supreme — fee  for  delivery,  secondary. 
But  he  may  be  attacked  by  the  vertigo 
of  money-making  and  forget  every- 
thing else.  Inspired  by  his  publisher, 
he  may  galvanize  an  old  earlier  book 
of  his  youth  or  rush  through  a  hasty 
new  one  to  have  it  in  print  before  the 
wave  of  his  sudden  fame  has  died  on 
the  shores  of  forgetfulness.  He  talks 
less  now  of  art  and  more  of  mart.  The 
new  book  may  fail  because  he  fell  into 
the  pitfall  of  commercialism  in — the 
dark  valley  of  prosperity. 

Successful  artists  and  illustrators,  in 


22O    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 


many  instances,  do  not  follow  up  the 
first  successes  that  won  them  fame. 
They  slur  over  their  work  ;  they  stand 
still  or  they  degenerate.  They  accentu- 
ate the  superficial  in  their  style  and 
care  little  for  the  strength  that  once 
was  vital.  They  repeat  the  same  char- 
acters, merely  in  slightly  changed  posi- 
tions, like  a  cheap  stock-company  with 
a  small  cast  and  a  meagre  wardrobe, 
— playing  in  repertoire.  These  men 
often  say  if  one  ventures  to  speak  that 
kindly  word  of  protest  we  should 
always  give  to  the  needy  :  "  Oh,  what 
difference  does  it  make — it  pays  all 
right."  They  should  find  some  good 
Samaritan  to  drag  them  from  the  dark 
valley  of  prosperity  and  put  them  back 
again  in  the  sunlight  of  struggle  and 
the  inspiration  of  adversity. 

The  business  man  who  began  in  a 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    221 

small  way  and  suddenly  finds  fortune 
emptying  cornucopias  of  gold  into  his 
lap  may  find  it  hard  to  keep  his  feet 
and  not  to  lose  his  head.  The  demon 
of  greed  may  transform  him — he  wants 
more.  He  is  like  the  farmer  who  de- 
sired only  the  land  that  adjoined  his 
farm — each  addition  increased  the  field 
of  desire  ;  the  more  he  had  the  more  he 
wanted.  Then  may  come  a  million 
owning  a  man,  not  the  man  a  million. 
To  accumulate  more,  he  may  defy  laws, 
bribe  legislatures  and  buy  judges.  Like 
a  modern  Joshua,  he  seeks  to  command 
— the  sun  of  justice  to  stand  still.  He 
chloroforms  his  business  conscience 
until  it  sleeps  so  soundly  that  an  earth- 
quake would  not  jostle  it. 

Wealth  often  makes  men  who  started 
in  bravely  with  high  ideals,  and  normal 
moral  health,  become  cold,  heartless, 


2    The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 


and  uncharitable  as  they  walk 
through  the  dark  valley  of  prosperity. 
They  often  become  arrogant  and  have  a 
tendency  to  expect  argument  to  close 
when  they  speak.  They  seem  to  have 
a  corner  on  judgment  as  if  their  eye 
alone  saw  the  sun  of  truth,  their 
wisdom  alone  plumbed  the  depth  of 
great  questions.  The  abnormal  pres- 
sure of  business  often  forces  them  into 
pleasures  of  which  they  count  not  the 
cost  nor  the  character.  They  are  often 
too  busy  to  take  stock  of  the  goods  of 
their  soul.  The  culture  of  the  higher 
affections  and  sentiments  is  often  killed. 
The  very  intensity  of  their  work  or 
their  play  produces  a  yawning,  yearn- 
ing ennui  hard  to  overcome. 

Trifles  affect  them  strangely  they 
grow  irritated,  impatient,  irrational,  at 
finding  even  a  crumpled  rose-leaf  in 


The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity    223 

the  golden  couch  of  their  insomnia. 
They  become  more  and  more  suspicious, 
and  hardly  know  whom  to  trust. 
They  fear  every  one  is  paving  the  way 
for  some  deal ;  stealthily  seeking  to  gain 
their  influence  or  to  subtract  something 
from  the  useless  pile  of  their  surplus 
wealth.  They  can  have  but  few 
trusted,  genuine  friends  of  the  mind, 
heart  and  soul.  Great  wealth,  like 
genius,  isolates  man  from  his  fellows  in 
the — closest  harmonies  of  life. 

Let  us  live  so  gladly  and  glowingly 
in  the  sunlight  of  real  simple  love  that 
means  our  great  all ;  with  faith  in  those 
few  around  us  that  girdles  our  whole 
world,  realizing  the  sweetness  of  honest 
true  friendships  that  so  inspire  ;  happy 
in  the  noble  round  of  loyalty,  consecra- 
ting to-day's  duties  to  usher  in  a  finer 
to-morrow,  so  living  in  the  joy  of  our 


;24  The  Dark  Valley  of  Prosperity 
imple  life  on  the  purer  lines  of  un- 
selfish realness  that — we  shall  be  glad 
the  trials,  tests  and  temptations  of  the 
dark  valley  have  actually  snubbed  us 
as  too  unimportant  to  notice. 

If  called  upon  to  the  burdens  of  the 
greater  responsibility  let  us  bear  them 
bravely  at  our  best  and  let  nothing  rob 
us  of  simplicity,  sweetness,  strength, 
sympathy  and  all  that  is  sterling.  The 
greatest  men  and  women  are  ever  the 
simplest.  There  are  thousands  who 
bear  their  great  burdens  of  fame,  suc- 
cess, power,  prosperity  or  wealth  and 
who  remain  happy  as  of  old  and  little, 
if  any,  spoiled  by  it  all.  They  must 
truly  be  rare  characters,  of  fine  re- 
sources of  thought,  heart,  nature  and 
soul  who  can  retain  the  crown  of  their 
individuality  after  a  journey  through 
• — the  dark  valley  of  prosperity. 

4 


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